
Book _-^3SL_ 



RAINY DA YS IN A LIBRARY. 



Rainy Days 



in a Library 



by 



SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P. 



r^ 



(,* 



r 



NEW YORK 
FRANCIS P HARPER 
1896 



T Hsrii 









PREFACE. 



ROBERT BURTON, in his 'Anatomy of 
Melancholy/ snarls at ' our ruder gentry ' 
for their neglect of books in favour of 
' hawkes, hounds, lawsuits, vain building, gur- 
mundizing, drinking, sports, playes, pastimes,' 
etc.; nevertheless these said gentry of the reigns 
of Queen Elizabeth and James I. seem to have 
kept melancholy at bay more effectually than poor 
Burton himself, with all his love of books. On 
the whole, ' Steenie,' Duke of Buckingham, is a 
more brilliant subject of contemplation than the 
dusty student of Christ Church, notwithstanding 
the testimony of some of the ' ancients ' of that 
college, quoted by Anthony a Wood, that Burton's 
1 company was very merry, facete and juvenile, and 
no man in his time did surpass him for his ready 
and dextrous interlarding his common discourses 
among them with verses from the poets, or sen- 



vi Preface. 

tences from classic authors ; which, being then all 
the fashion in the university, made his company 
all the more acceptable.' On the other hand, we 
have it on Granger's authority, in his * Biblio- 
graphical History,' that although Burton began 
his * Anatomy ' as an antidote to his own depres- 
sion, the labour did but deepen it, so that at last 
it came to pass that the only device whereby he 
could raise a smile was listening to the outrageous 
ribaldry of bargemen on the Isis at Oxford Bridge. 
On the whole, justly though the present genera- 
tion delights in the ' Anatomy,' its verdict would 
probably be that the ' ruder gentry ' did better for 
their posterity by their ' vain building ' than by 
directing more of their energy into letters. There 
is a good deal that is dreary in Elizabethan liter- 
ature, but the land is none too rich in such archi- 
tectural treasures as Longleat or Levens. 

It is scarcely likely that anyone tracing out the 
sources of nineteenth-century melancholy would 
assign neglect of reading as one of them. There 
is no scarcity of books and no lack of readers. 
Whether all the books are worth printing and 
whether all readers read wisely is quite another 
matter, and one with which there is here no con- 
cern. But this is obvious, that we can afford to 
be fastidious in the presence of so much plenty, 
and there is no mood or circumstance which may 
not be fitted to its own appropriate literature. 
Sleeplessness o' nights may be changed from a 
dreaded visitation to a positive luxury if the right 



Preface. vii 



kind of book is at hand, and a railway journey 
turned from irksomeness to recreation by printed 
matter of a different sort. All depends on the 
successful fitting of supply to demand. The first 
time I ever went hunting in Ireland my host was 
the well-remembered ' Chicken ' Hartopp. He 
kept house near Navan, and the standing break- 
fast dish on hunting-mornings (he hunted six days 
a week and ran a drag before breakfast on Sunday 
mornings) was an underdone leg of mutton. It 
suited the occasion well enough, nor often did the 
appetite of those strong young days recoil from 
the encounter. But, once past the sixth lustre, 
how many of us could face the daintiest Welsh 
gigot before the sun had crossed the meridian ? 

It is even so with books. It is in working hours 
that knowledge must be drawn from the deep 
cistern of history, and the lesson laid to heart 
which long ago was formulated faultlessly by 
Thucydides — ' to have a true view of what has 
happened, and of the like or similar things which, 
in accordance with human nature (Kara to avOpco- 
ireiov), probably will happen hereafter.' 

But in the small hours of the morning, when 
the sheets wreath into unsympathetic folds and the 
pillows bulge intolerably round the wakeful head, 
one wants to forget to dvOpcoireiov, which is often the 
cause of his wakefulness, and such reading might 
bring on serious mental indigestion. The novel 
which at such times lulls the nerves and smooths 
the descent to slumber would be all too trivial, with 



viii Preface. 

its mock predicaments and make-believe heroism, 
for the realities of noontide. Even in broad 
daylight there are hours and moods when it is 
not unwise to be seduced into caprice. Duke est 
desipere — and there is no safer locus than a country- 
house library on a wet morning. How fondly 
memory lingers over the vagabond reading of such 
a place and time ! 

Yes ; it must be a country-house. The eye 
must be free to leave the printed page and travel 
over the blackbird-haunted lawn to the wet wood- 
land beyond. There must be no clatter of cabs 
or risk of importunate door-bell. For choice, 
the house should belong to somebody else, for 
then there is no sense of impending duty; the 
thoughts, untrammelled by responsibility, are free 
to dive or plod, to float or soar, to drink or sip, as 
the wanton spirit moves. Above all, it must be a 
really wet morning. There must be no mistake 
about the duration of the downpour — no alluring 
gleams of sunshine — no break in the gray canopy 
of vapour, else you will be pricked by that incor- 
rigible instinct, inherited by every Englishman 
from his primaeval sires, to go out o' doors — a 
frame of mind utterly unfitted for the fare pro- 
vided in the shelves. 

And, look you ! if you can go out, do so. 
Keep books to their proper office — studiorum in- 
strumenta. * Nous ne trouvons que nous dans les 
livres,' and out of doors you will find a great deal 
else. But, given a quiet room, streaming panes, 



Preface. ix 

a seacoal fire chirping and twinkling sympatheti- 
cally, and a ' few bookshelves,' it is your own fault 
if you miss felicity. 

The charm of a country-house library consists 
in the chances it offers. Here there is seldom 
the forbidding formality of institutes or the classi- 
fied order of clubs. There is no chilling severance 
between natural history and belles lettres. You are 
as likely to pull out an eighteenth-century drama- 
tist as a treatise upon local agriculture. 

The first book that comes to hand is not pro- 
mising. It is an elaborate facsimile of a book on 
deportment, with all the self-conscious pose that 
renders reprints hateful in eyes trained to rever- 
ence. Such are in no degree nearer real literature 
than the gentlemen and ladies behind the foot- 
lights approach the manner of everyday life. You 
can't forget the make-up — the false hair, the 
grease-paint, the lamp-black, the unnatural strut 
and the inevitable mouthing. Nevertheless, as it 
appears that only two copies of the original of 
this book remain in the world, let us take 
advantage of the counterfeit, and turn over its 
pages. 

Monreith, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 



PREFACE 
I ADAM PETRIE'S RULES 

II. baldassare's perfect courtier 

III. THE OLDEST SPORTING JOURNAL 

IV. FIRMILIAN . 

V. BULWER'S ARTIFICIAL CHANGELING 

VI. HAYWARD'S ART OF DINING 

VII. jonston's WONDERS 

VIII. ST. JOHN'S HIGHLAND SPORT 

IX. TALLEMANT DES REAUX 

X. ACTS OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMEN 

XI. CAPTAIN TOPHAM'S LETTERS 

XII. PITCAIRN'S CRIMINAL TRIALS 

n XIII. BLAEU'S ATLAS 



PAGE 

V 

I 

II 

23 

-> n 

00 

43 
53 
61 

7i 
81 

9i 
101 

in 
121 



I. 

ADAM PETRIE'S RULES, 



I. 

ADAM PETRIE'S RULES. 

ADAM PETRIE was one of a rather numerous 
class in the eighteenth century, when the 
loftiest ambition of the Scottish peasant 
was that he should live to see his son ' wag his pow 
in the pulpit.' Adam was, in short, a ' stickit 
minister,' who in 1712 had passed the trials, and 
received licence to preach ; but, failing to get a 
presentation, became, after the plan of ever dear 
Dominie Sampson, tutor in the family of Sir 
Robert Sinclair of Stevenston, in East Lothian. 
The elaborate behaviour he witnessed in his new 
sphere, and found that he was expected to comply 
with, was something he had never imagined 
hitherto. Apparently the suspicion had never 
entered his thoughts that toothpicks and pocket- 
handkerchiefs were anything but costly super- 
fluities, or that it mattered in what manner food 
should be conveyed to the mouth, provided it 
arrived there plentifully and frequently. Such 



First Day. 



refinements as he now acquired were, he knew, 
utterly unknown among his kinsfolk and early 
friends. So, being a thoughtful wight, and kindly 
withal, he set about to make known to them and 
others the details of the new-found refinement, 
just as a traveller in Central Africa takes note of 
the manners and customs of aboriginal tribes. 
Thus in 1720 was published his little volume,* 
now of exceeding rarity and value. Only three 
copies of the original edition are known to exist, 
one being in the library at Abbotsford, and it is 
hard to say what price it might not realize under 
the hammer. 

The book captivated the curious fancy of Lord 
Dundrennan, under whose direction a second 
edition was published in 1835, an d again in 1877 
the works of Adam Petrie formed the first volume 
of the short-lived Scotish (sic) Literary Club. 
Petrie's book, therefore, now rests for appreciation 
not on its scarcity, but on the artlessness of the 
author. 

The dedication is to the Lord Provost and 
Bailies of Edinburgh, ' who are so thoroughly 
acquainted with all the Steps of Civility and 
good Breeding, that it is impossible for the least 
Misrepresentation of them to escape their Notice.' 
Further, there is an appeal to ' the Candid Reader 
to excuse the Flatness of my Stile,' because, 

* Rules of Good Deportment, or of Good Breeding,, 
for the Use of Youth. Edinbvrgh, printed in the year 
M.DCCXX. (Price, stitch'd, is.) 



Adam Petrie's Rules. 



' having wrapt all in a very small Circumference,' 
there lacks room for ' its being cloathed with 
elegant Phrases and ornate Expressions.' There 
is no saying to what levels of language the author 
might not have soared, were it not for this 
circumference ; but, by dint of discriminate — 
or indiscriminate — use of capital letters, some 
of his passages make a very fine appear- 
ance. 

There are not wanting traces of the effort it cost 
this master of deportment to cast his old slough 
of rusticity. * Good Manners,' he sighs, ' must 
be attained by Exercise and Use for some Tract 
of Time.' It would be good to see him practising 
his precepts for walking abroad. There are as 
many things to remember as in striking a golf-ball 
from the tee. 

{ A Gentleman ought not to run or walk too fast in the 
Streets, lest he be suspected of going a Message ; nor ought 
his Pace to be too slow ; nor must he take large Steps, nor 
too stiff and stately, nor lift his Legs too high, nor stamp 
hard on the Ground ; neither must he swing his Arms 
backward and forward, nor must he carry his Knees too 
close, nor must he go wagging his Breech, nor with his Feet 
in a straight Line, but with the Inside of his Feet a little 
out ; nor with his Eyes looking down, nor too much 
elevated, nor looking hither and thither, but with a sedate 
Countenance.' 

It is a difficult art to acquire, you see, even if 
the pupil has not to consider his acquaintances ; 
but we cannot accompany our preceptor very far 
before finding ourselves face to face with one who 



First Day. 



springs out upon you at every turn — the Person of 
Quality. His awful presence is provided for on 
every page of Petrie's book. Life would be a 
tolerably simple affair for ordinary folks but for 
this terrible being. As matters are, it is at 
our peril if we forget what is due to him. 
Thus : 

'When you walk with your Superior, let him have the 
right Hand ; but if near a Wall, let him be next to it. In 
Scotland the right hand only is given, but in England and 
Ireland they give the most eminent Person the Wall, and to 
all Ladies.' 

That is fairly easy to remember, provided you 
bear in mind in what part of the United Kingdom 
the scene of your discipline is laid ; but great 
presence of mind is called for in the presence of 
more than one Person of Quality. 

' When you walk with your Superiors, you must not keep 
the Middle, but let the most eminent Person have it, and 
the next eminent Person his right Hand.' 

This is harassing enough, but the situation 
pales before the excruciating complexity of 
carriage exercise. 

' If you be to travel in a Coach, let your Superiors enter 
first ; and when you enter, take the worst Place. The 
Hinder end is the best, the right Hand of the Hinder part 
is the first Place, the left Hand is the second Place, the 
Place over against the Person of Quality is the third, and 
his left Hand the fourth Place.' 

The practice of printing every substantive with 



Adam Petrie's Rules. 



a capital initial is surely rather a slight on the 
Person of Quality, for whom this distinction might 
appropriately be reserved. 

Our preceptor overcomes his tremors in passing 
from the Person of Quality to prescribe behaviour 
towards Females, as he brusquely terms them, and 
adopts a firm tone, tempered with compassion for 
their inferiority to men. 

' It is good to carry somewhat reserved from the Fair 
Sex, though of Merit, yet not to be wanting in Civility to 
them. This will compensate for Deficiency in Familiarity. 
It is undecent and immodest to see Women tigging, wrest- 
ling and working with Men.' 

Most people will agree with this, but here comes 
something not so nice : 

* If a young Man and young Woman be in a Room, and 
you be to remove from them, and if there be none with them, 
it is imprudent and uncivil to shut the Door after You, for 
if a Person of a narrow Soul shall come and find them shut 
up in a Room, they may be ready to stain their Reputation.' 

Petrie holds the gentle sex in such suspicion 
that he is probably speaking from hearsay when 
he pronounces it imprudent to trust women with 
secrets, because ' tho some of them are more 
reserv'd than Men, yet generally they are not so.' 
Yet there is a chivalrous self-denial, beyond the 
attainment of modern beaux, in his precept, 
' Smoak not a pipe before Ladies, tho Inferiors.' 
But he does not waste much time over women ; 
there is nobler game afoot, and he hurries his 
readers back to contemplate the Person of Quality. 



8 First Day. 



If that august being speaks crossly, or even 
coarsely, you must not contradict him, for that 
were to add ' Fewel to the Flame of his Anger.' 
If you have occasion to write to him, let it not be 
on common paper, but on gilt-edged. If you visit 
him, you are to ' forbear hauking, spitting, yawn- 
ing, and sneezing as much as possible ;' but pro- 
vision is made for the infirmity of the flesh, and, 
if you must indulge in any or all of these exer- 
cises, then ' turn your Back to him when you do 
it, and put your Hat or Handkerchief before you ; 
and when you spit, do it in your Handkerchief and 
not in the Room/ Further, you must on no 
account ' pick your Teeth or Nose, scratch or 
make Faces, rowl your Tongue in your Mouth . . . 
clack your Fingers, shrug your Shoulders ... or 
put off your Periwig,' on pain of instant dismissal 
from the presence of the Person of Quality. This 
must have been a hard saying to some of Petrie's 
disciples : sua si bona norint ! They might have 
come under a sharper lash. For, look you, how 
reasonable our master is compared with some 
others ! 

* Some think it rude to sit with their Back towards the 
Picture of an eminent Person : For my part I see no 
Reason for that Fancy ; for there are some Rooms that are 
surrounded by such Pictures, so as there would be no sitting 
in them.' 

Directions for behaviour in general society are 
less difficult to comply with. For instance : 
1 When you wipe your Nose, or the Sweat off, you must 



Adam Petrie's Rules, 



turn a little about from the Company, and hold up your Hat 
or your Hand betwixt you and them. Beware of offering 
your Handkerchief to any except they desire it. 5 

We are not told what would happen if one 
refused the loan of his handkerchief. 

Good manners at table are, as everyone knows, 
not to be acquired without patient practice ; but 
no one could go far wrong who should commit 
Petrie's rules to memory. For example, if you 
help the Person of Quality to something that 
requires a spoon, it is better that you should not 
already have used the spoon, and reassuring if at 
the same time you say, ' My Lord, I have not used 
this spoon.' When you do presume to use a 
spoon, ' do not suck your Meat out of it with an 
ungratefull Noise,' and remember that * to wipe 
the Nose or the Sweat of the Face with a Table 
Napkin is most rude.' It is better not to take 
snuff till after dinner, 

1 for the particles of it being driven from their Nose by 
their Breath, and carried through the Air to the Company, 
is most unpleasant. I have known some drive it the Breadth 
of the whole Table, so that the whole Company had a share 
of it from their Nose.' 

Petrie gets very prosy in condemning stage- 
plays and cards, nor can we feel much interest in 
the discussion whether ministers should preach 
in gloves or with bare hands. But there is an 
interesting reminder of an ancient custom in his 
directions how to behave in church. 



io First Day. 



* If a Minister preach in a Congregation where he knows 
not the chief Heretor,* or where there is a Dispute betwixt 
any of them for the Precedency, I think that after Sermon 
he should bow to none of them. ... I have observed a 
Piece of Rudeness in some, that after Prayer, seek a 
Blessing, or giving of Thanks, that they have been so rude 
that they have not stayed to give the Minister the Return of 
his Salute, but have turned in such a hurry to the most 
eminent Person/ 

Manifestly it is not consistent with good deport- 
ment to forget that terrible Person of Quality, 
even at the most solemn moments. Of course, 
what was thought proper in church was reflected 
in family worship. In that observance — 

' It is thought uncivil for a Minister to turn his Back upon 
eminent Persons. If in a Family, he should turn his Chair 
towards the most eminent Persons.' 

There are not wanting persons who sigh for the 
better manners of a bygone age. On the whole, 
however, it must be admitted that Persons of 
Quality, and all who have to mell with such, enjoy 
greater ease, and stand less in peril of taking or 
giving offence, than was the case during the early 
Georgian era. 

* Landowner. 



II. 

BALDASSARE'S PERFECT COURTIER. 



II. 

BALDASSARE'S PERFECT COURTIER. 

THREE hundred years before the happy 
thought occurred to Sir Arthur Helps of 
putting his observations on things in 
general into the lips of imaginary guests in a 
country house, the Count Baldassare Castiglione 
had hit upon the same device, and published 
a volume entitled ' II Cortegiano.' But there is 
in it this difference from ' Friends in Council,' 
that, instead of the pseudonymous Milverton, 
Ellesmere, and the rest, we listen to the con- 
versation of real men and women, of whom the 
names of some have become historical. He would 
greatly err who, misled by the title-page, should 
cast this book aside, under the impression that 
it was no more than a treatise on deportment and 
etiquette. It is full of calm, far-seeing philosophy, 
and reflects, with charming minuteness, the 
daily routine of a wealthy Italian's house at a 
period of extraordinary social interest. It is 



14 Second Day. 



a picture of society of the Renaissance at its 
best. 

Baldassare tells us by way of introduction how, 
when Guid' Ubaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of 
Urbino, died in 1508, he passed into the household 
of the Duke Francesca' della Rovere, who 
succeeded his uncle as ruler of the little state. 
Penetrated with a sense of the virtues of Guid' 
Ubaldo, and being unwilling that the memory of 
them should perish, he threw together in 1514 
some notes of everyday events in his patron's 
family circle, and lent the manuscript to the 
Marchesa di Pescare, under promise of secrecy. 
But when it came to his knowledge that this 
faithless dame had directed copies to be made of 
the most interesting parts, becoming apprehensive 
di molti inconvenienti, che in simili casi possonjt 
occorrere — of many disagreeable consequences 
which may ensue in such cases — he took matters 
into his own hands, and had the book printed at 
the Aldine press of Venice in 1528. He apologizes 
as Lombardo parlando Lombardo, instead of 
imitating Boccaccio in the Tuscan speech, wisely 
preferring his native tongue to one which he 
could only use as a foreigner. It is strange that 
neither here, in Baldassare's introduction, nor 
when the admitted excellence of Tuscan over 
other Italian dialects comes up for discussion in 
the duchess's withdrawing room, is any allusion 
made to the great master who first ennobled his 
native Tuscan. The ' Divina Commedia ' is never 



Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 15 

so much as mentioned, but Boccaccio and 
Petrarca are constantly referred to as the double 
standard of perfection. 

The scene is laid in the magnificent palace built 
for the Duke Federigo by Luciano da Laurana, 
wherein both Federigo and Guid' Ubaldo had laid 
up store of art treasure, and collected a library of 
the classics ; wherein also both father and son 
loved to collect artists, authors, and men of 
science. Guid' Ubaldo was a martyr to hereditary 
gout, and a helpless cripple from his twentieth 
year ; but he took great pleasure in the conversa- 
tion of cultivated men, besides encouraging all 
knightly exercises — opere delta cavaleria. Jousts, 
feats of arms, and music were the daily occupa- 
tions of the guests, and the amusement of their 
host. After supper the poor duke had to retire 
early to bed, on which everyone repaired to spend 
the evening in the duchess's apartments, where 
the ragionirnenti which form the bulk of the volume 
took place, lightened by honeste f acetic 

After protracted discussion as to what kind of 
game they should agree to carry on from night to 
night, they finally fixed on one which, in modern 
society, might be found a trifle heavy. It was to 
consist of a theme of which everyone was to con- 
tribute to the discussion, and a fixed rule was that 
no one, on pain of forfeit, was to take active part 
in it without contradicting the previous speaker. 
Piacque molto questo guioco — this game found favour 
all round ; and on the suggestion of Messer 



1 6 Second Day. 



Federico Fregoso it was agreed that the subject of 
discussion should be the attributes of a perfect 
gentleman. 

Now, inasmuch as the idea of setting a party of 
ladies and gentlemen of the nineteenth century to 
air their ideas on good breeding during four con- 
secutive nights is enough to set one yawning on 
the spot, it is necessary to remember the state 
of Italian society at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, in order to understand why this proposi- 
tion found so much favour with the company, and 
became the subject of such an excellent book. The 
revival of culture had been in progress for more 
than a hundred years. The awakened intelligence 
of the Italian people was saturated with the 
artistic and literary spirit in a degree unparalleled, 
so far as we know, except among the Greeks in 
the time of Pericles, though we may suspect it 
prevailed equally at certain periods of Egyptian 
history. No one could aspire to the standing of a 
gentleman who was uninstructed in letters, in- 
sensible to beauty in art, or who was unable to 
practise the graces of chivalry. Hence, among 
leisured and well-to-do people no topic was of 
such fresh and absorbing interest as the ideal 
knightly attributes — the perfect union of intel- 
lectual and physical accomplishment ; the new 
knowledge had been grafted upon mediaeval 
chivalry. Be it far from us to hint that know- 
ledge has lost any of its freshness in our time, but 



Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 17 

cheap and excellent handbooks have robbed it of 
some of its novelty. 

Urbino, during the reign of the Montefeltro 
line, was a kind of placid backwater in the turbid 
stream of Italian politics ; men sought its quiet 
streets and stately courts as a resting-place from 
the intrigue, the bloodshed, the rivalries, the 
tyranny of other and more famous cities ; and in 
those days every scrap of leisure seems to have 
been turned to account in acquiring some of the 
new learning. Hence the zest with which Fede- 
rico Fergoso's suggestion was taken up by the 
duchess's guests ; it gave opportunity for chatter- 
ing about that which was the ruling passion of the 
day — culture. 

The discussion takes very much the same line 
and leads to the same conclusion as would be 
arrived at among ourselves. Count Ludovico da 
Canossa leads off by affirming that gentle birth is 
essential to a perfect gentleman ; Gaspar Palla- 
vicino, while admitting the general prepossession 
in favour of well-born persons, denies that there is 
any limit to the heights to which an ignobile may 
climb. The question, after a long discussion, is 
left in suspense, and the conversation then runs 
on the accomplishments necessary to a gentleman. 
Arms and horsemanship (in the latter of which 
Italians claimed to excel all other nations) held 
the first place ; next to which came the chase, 
athletic games and dancing. Count Ludovico 
illustrates the advantage of being able to dance by 



1 8 Second Day. 



a story of one whose name he considerately with- 
holds, who, on being asked by a fair lady to dance, 
replied that it was not his business at all. 'What, 
then, is your business, signor ?' she asked. ' To 
fight,' he replied, scowling. 'Well, then/ she 
retorted, ' seeing that this is a time of peace, I 
wonder you don't have yourself and your harness 
greased and hung up in a wardrobe till there is 
some use for you, lest you should become even 
more rusty than you are.' 

Great stress was laid by all the speakers in dis- 
cussing these accomplishments on the absolute 
necessity for absence of visible effort. The one 
unpardonable blot is held to be affectation, and 
the drawling accent of languid swells (pronuntiano 
cosi afflitte) is voted intolerable. 

This leads to animated debate whether the 
literary style should be more stately and elaborate 
than the conversational, which finishes with the 
conclusion that both in writing and speaking it 
behoves a gentleman to be fully conscious and at 
the same time to seem unconscious. 

The extent to which a gentleman may be an 
amateur in painting, sculpture, or music, is a 
question to which, after three hundred years, no 
satisfactory answer has been found; and the 
speculations of the company on this topic were 
interrupted by a picturesque incident. The court- 
yard suddenly rang with the clash of arms and 
words of command ; the glare of torches shone 
through the casements, and it turned out that an 



Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 19 

escort which had been conducting Pope Julius II. 
to the frontier had returned under command of 
the young Prefect. That gentleman and his suite, 
as soon as they heard what the duchess was doing, 
craved and were granted admission. The new- 
comers were far too eager for intellectual pleasures 
to accept proffered refreshment, so, seating them- 
selves supperless among the rest, they begged that 
they might be informed of the course taken by the 
discussion in order that they might join in it ; but 
it was voted too late, so the proceedings of the 
first night wound up with a dance. - 

Baldassare modestly refrains from repeating any 
part which he may have taken in these discussions, 
but he takes occasion at the beginning of each 
night's debate to confide in the reader by a kind 
of aside. Like every true philosopher, he dis- 
cusses the fallacy of the belief, prevalent in all 
ages of the world, that men and manners have 
deteriorated from some former high standard. He 
makes gentle fun of those who sigh for the good 
old times, and shows that, whereas every genera- 
tion of which record remains has made the same 
complaint, the world must long since have arrived 
at the last degree of corruption (a quell' ultimo 
grado di maid). 

1 Old people/ he says, ' reprove younger ones for 
doing many things which are in themselves neither 
good nor bad, because they used not to do the like 
when young. They say it is unbecoming for young 
people to ride through the city, especially on 



2o Second Day. 



mules ; to wear furred pelisses in winter or long 
cloaks in spring, to wear a berretta before the age 
of eighteen, and many such things to which, in 
truth, they greatly object because such customs 
have come in vogue . . . just as formerly, when 
they were young, everyone chose to carry a 
sparrow-hawk on his wrist, only to show himself 
smart {per esser gallante), to dance without touching 
the lady's hand, and to use many other fashions, 
highly esteemed at the time, which now we con- 
sider unbecoming.' 

There is a curious discussion in the course of 
the second evening as to the propriety of persons 
of gentle birth taking part in village festivals. 
Federico Fergoso declares against it, whereupon 
he is taken to task by Gasparo Pallavicino, who 
on all questions champions the democratic side. 
He says that in his native Lombardy it is the 
custom for the young nobles to join the villagers 
in their sports, to dance all day in the sun, to 
throw the weight, wrestle and race with them, all 
without loss of dignity ; and, says he, ' I think this 
familiarity (domestichezza) shows a kind of amiable 
liberality.' 

The success of the duchess's reunions was so 
complete, and the enthusiasm of the company 
so enduring, that at last they wind up with an 
all-night sitting, the end of which is thus de- 
scribed : 

' No one felt in the least sleepy, as almost always 
is the case when one passes in vigil the accus- 



Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 21 

tomed hours for repose. Having opened the 
windows on that side of the palace which looks on 
the lofty crest of Mount Catari, they found the 
East aglow with rosy sunrise. The stars had all 
gone out save Venus, gentle empress of heaven, 
who rules the confines of day and night, from 
whom there seemed to move a gentle breeze 
imparting a sharp freshness (mordente fresco) to the 
air. And so, having reverently taken farewell of 
the duchess, each one went his way to his chamber 
without need of candle, for the torch of day 
sufficed.' 

Truly a pleasant picture to dwell on in a land 
where the sun too often rose on sin and suffering 
and lamentable misrule. 

One is naturally disposed to ask how Castiglione 
carried out the precepts which he has put into 
such seductive language. He was a distinguished 
diplomatist, and became the plenipotentiary of 
Pope Clement VII. at the Spanish court. Strange 
to say, he became naturalized in Spain, and was 
created Bishop of Avila. Baldassare's memory 
derived some advantage from the revival of arts 
and letters in which he so greatly rejoiced, for 
Tasso wrote a sonnet on him, Giulio Romano 
executed his monument at Padua, and Rafael 
painted his portrait, which is now in the Louvre. 
He died at Toledo in 1529, just a year after 
the publication of his book, and the Emperor 
Charles V. declared that in him the world had 
lost one of its best cavaliers. 



III. 

THE OLDEST SPORTING JOURNAL. 



III. 

THE OLDEST SPORTING JOURNAL. 

MR. JOHN WHEBLE'S earlier experience 
of literature was a thorny one. Pub- 
lisher of the Middlesex Journal and the 
devoted adherent of John Wilkes, he was trounced 
for some articles contributed by Home Tooke to 
his paper, and ordered to appear at the bar of the 
House of Commons. He managed, however, to 
keep out of the way until his patron Wilkes, 
having at length established his own position, 
threw his aegis over Wheble and induced the 
House to forgive him. Thereafter Wheble, having 
had enough of politics, cast about for a less stormy 
sphere, and in 1793 launched the first number of 
the Sporting Magazine ; or, Monthly Calendar of the 
Transactions of the Turf, the Chase, and every other 
Diversion Interesting to the Man of Pleasure and 
Enterprise. It was the first periodical devoted 
to field-sports, the source to which may be traced 
the torrent of sporting literature that now flows 



26 Third Day. 



monthly, weekly, daily, through the press of our 
country. The best proof of the success of the 
new magazine is that it continued to be published 
until the year 1870; indeed, it proved so much 
to the taste of the ' Man of Pleasure and Enter- 
prise,' that one of its earlier correspondents sug- 
gested that its name should be altered to the 
Transporting Magazine. 

It is not yet a century since its birth ; but to 
what a different England from ours it takes us 
back ! Not a land, perhaps, in which we should 
find ourselves altogether at ease — among its 
sporting circles, at least. Most of the pages are 
intolerably dull ; their wit has a depressing effect 
on the reader of to-day, though it may have 
tickled the understandings of full-blooded, hard- 
drinking squires on drowsy summer afternoons 
or long winter evenings. Catholic as was the 
prospectus, the new magazine attempted to fulfil 
it to the letter ; everything that could be included 
in the term 'sport,' as then understood, as well 
as a great deal which according to our ideas 
could not, was admitted. Although, on one hand, 
deer-stalking and salmon-fishing — now reckoned 
among the higher field-sports — were never so 
much as alluded to, yet, on the other hand, the 
editor regaled his subscribers with condensed 
reports of the principal criminal trials; and if, 
as was too often the case, they concluded with 
a capital sentence, the culprits were followed to 
the gallows, and a minute description was given 
of their last moments. 



The Oldest Sporting Journal. 27 

Some gruesome particulars are given of the 
hanging of one Hubbard, with eight other convicts, 
at Newgate on January 15, 1794. ' After the 
bodies were suspended a child was brought under 
the gallows, to which the convulsed hand of 
Hubbard was applied, under the idea of its curing 
a wen.' It was surely a curious scheme that 
admitted such horrors into a magazine of sport. 
The peculiar class of offences then designated 
Crim. Con. were sympathetically classed under 
the title * Matrimonial Sporting,' and detailed in 
semi-legal, semi-facetious phrases peculiarly offen- 
sive to a later taste. In short, the Sporting 
Magazine, in its earlier numbers, partook a good 
deal of the character of three publications now 
defunct, viz., the Newgate Calendar, Joe Miller's 
Jest-Book, and Bell's Life. 

Yet, here and there the loitering reader will 
find something to interest him, if it is only by 
vivid contrast of that age and this. For example, 
it comes as information to most of us to be told 
that a century ago no person might kill game, 
or have in his possession guns, bows, greyhounds, 
setting-dogs, etc., unless he was the owner of 
land of the value of £100 a year, or had a long 
lease of the value of £150 a year, or was the 
son and heir-apparent of an esquire or other 
person of higher degree. The degree of esquire 
was in those times accurately defined, and Black- 
stone is quoted as recognising the decision of 
heralds that colonels, serjeants-at-law, and 



28 Third Day. 



doctors, in the three learned professions, ranked 
above esquires. But this did not save an un- 
fortunate Dr. Smart, who held a diploma from 
St. Andrew's University, from conviction on a 
charge of shooting game without being a person 
duly qualified. Three judges out of four held 
that, although Dr. Smart was a person of higher 
degree than an esquire, yet he did not fulfil the 
requirements of the Act in that he was not ' the 
son and heir-apparent of an esquire or other 
person of higher degree,' so he had to pay a 
substantial fine. 

Every student of old literature must be familiar 
with the complacency with which, in every age, 
writers dilate on the perfection to which machinery 
has been brought, and the impossibility of further 
improvement. It is amusing to read here a 
description of the fowling-piece of last century 
(a single-barrelled weapon with a flint lock): ' The 
genius and industry of the English gunmakers 
have brought them to such a degree of perfec- 
tion, that in theory only nothing more can be 
hoped for.' The directions for reloading are 
agreeably suggestive of deliberation : * It is ex- 
tremely necessary to prick the touch-hole after 
every discharge, and to guard against all remains 
of fuse or squib, by inserting into the touch-hole 
the feather of a partridge's wing, which will clear 
it of these dangerous remains.' It would be 
difficult to prove that the enjoyment of the sport 
was less to one in those days, armed with the 



The Oldest Sporting Journal. 29 

best weapon then known, and contented with 
two or three brace of cock-pheasants beaten out 
of hedgerows, than it is to the modern hero, 
wielding a pair of hammerless breechloaders, 
fitted with ejectors and all the rest of it, and 
surrounding himself with piles of slain. Some 
of us, it may be, even now might be brought, 
under the seal of confidence, to confess to a 
sneaking regret for the obsolete paraphernalia of 
the muzzle-loader, just as we used to hear an 
older generation than ourselves mourning over 
the departed glories of ' the road.' Memory 
recalls fondly the more elaborate ceremonies 
observed in our youth : the powder puffed off to 
clear the nipples, the sharp tup-tup-tup of the 
wadding rammed delicately home, the snap of 
the ramrod returned, and, finally, the adjustment 
of a pair of bright copper caps — all this was 
part of the craft, and men took a pride in doing 
it artistically ; whereas, now, any duffer can ram 
a couple of green cases into his piece and the 
thing is done : the only comfort being that he 
too will come in his turn to be looked on as a 
fogey. The improvement in firearms, however, 
has favoured the development of sportsman-like 
observances which seem to have been unknown 
in the early days of this magazine. Few living 
men would confess to having put in practice the 
following precept : ' When a hare starts up at a 
distance, it is often of use to follow her with 
the eyes, because she will sometimes squat down, 



30 Third Day. 



and you may soon after approach and shoot her 
on the form.' In another place it is prescribed 
that a good plan to shoot partridges in snow is 
to go out on a moonlight night with a shirt over 
the coat and a white cap on, and pot them on 
the ground. 

Cockfighting, as might be expected, bulks 
largely as one of the diversions of the ' Man of 
Pleasure and Enterprise,' and many pages are 
filled with its records, laws, and approved prin- 
ciples, as well as discussions on the merits of the 
different ' piles ' or colours ; ginger red, birchin 
yellow, and pied pile each had its enthusiastic 
adherents. Pugilism, too, being then at the zenith, 
is the subject of continuous chronicle. One is 
reminded of the truly heroic scale on which 
gambling prevailed among our great-grandfathers. 
In our day the unfortunate Mr. Benzon was 
regarded as a youth of exceptionally little 
sagacity ; and though plenty of misery is still 
hatched in private hells, the 'Jubilee Juggins' has 
had few rivals. Gambling and betting disputes 
were often the subjects of litigation. Perhaps an 
English judge was never called upon to decide a 
more grotesque case than that arising out of a 
wager between the Earl of March and Mr. Pigot. 
The former bet one thousand six hundred guineas 
to five hundred that Sir William Codrington, aged 
fifty, would outlive Mr. Pigot's father, aged 
seventy. Unknown to any of the parties, Mr. 
Pigot's father happened to have died that very 



The Oldest Sporting Journal. 31 

morning ; on hearing which, Mr. Pigot junior 
refused to pay up, and was sued by Lord March. 
The jury awarded the five hundred guineas — a 
decree that was sustained, on appeal, by the Lord 
Chief-Justice and other judges. 

Even cricket, which, as we know it, has a charm 
for our countrymen independent of all pecuniary 
stimulant, used formerly to be played for heavy 
stakes. For instance, twenty-two of Middlesex 
play eleven of England at Lord's on August 26, 
1793, for one thousand guineas, and win it. The 
return match, for a like sum, comes off on 
September 9, and Middlesex wins again. A 
thousand guineas seems to have been the usual 
stakes in first-class matches, for in the same year 
we hear of Essex playing Herts, and Surrey play- 
ing All England, for that sum. Moreover, Surrey 
twice won one thousand guineas that season from 
the luckless county of Hants. Then, incredible 
sums are stated to have been lost and won at 
billiards. In a single day's play, on December 
22, 1793, Mr. Br — gh— n is recorded to have lost 
fifteen thousand pounds to Mr. L — s — n B — ck — d, 
although early in the play the former stood a 
winner of seven thousand pounds. A few months 
later, the Prince of Wales is said to have lost 
eleven thousand guineas in a single night's 
billiards at White's Club to a gentleman whose 
name Mr. Wheble does not disclose. 

In the Sportsman's Calendar, which is given with 
the January number of the Magazine, the time- 



32 Third Day. 



honoured dates of opening the shooting season for 
different kinds of game correspond with those 
observed now. But there is one entry that strikes 
the modern sportsman oddly enough, viz. : 
• December 25, Foxhunting begins.' What self- 
denying ordinance was it that kept the hounds in 
their kennel throughout November — of all the 
moons that wax and wane the foxhunter's 
favourite ? 



IV. 
FIRM I LI AN. 



IV. 
FIRMILIAN. 

A GENERATION has passed away since 
the accomplishment of one of the most 
elaborate, yet harmless, hoaxes ever per- 
petrated in literature. In May, 1854, there 
appeared in Blackwood's Magazine what purported 
to be a review of the work of a new writer of 
a new school — ' Firmilian ; or, The Student of 
Badajos : A Tragedy. By T. Percy Jones. 
Printed for private circulation.' Such was the 
title of the supposed dramatic poem, and the 
reviewer let it be understood that its author 
submitted it for criticism upon its claim to be the 
type of the poetry of the future, marking the 
genesis of the Spasmodic School. 

It is easy now, with late-born sagacity, to read 
between the lines of the review and detect the 
scarcely veiled merriment of the writer at his 
own fun ; but most of the newspaper critics 
at the time reviewed it in sober earnest. Some 



36 Fourth Day. 



took up the cudgels for the author against the 
reviewer, and it is on record that one country 
editor walked boldly into the pitfall, declared that 
he had seen the whole poem, and protested that 
it was 'another specimen of the injustice of 
Blackwood to poets of that school.' The piquancy 
of the joke lay in the fact that no such poem as 
* Firmilian ' existed when the review was written. 
The copious extracts quoted therein were the 
work of the reviewer himself, William Edmon- 
stoune Aytoun ; nor was it until his treatment of 
Mr. T. Percy Jones had been condemned or 
approved by the critic's critics that he set to work 
to finish a drama which is, indeed, infinitely more 
readable than most works of more pretension. 
Farce as it really is — Aytoun's biographer, Mr. 
(now Sir) Theodore Martin, rightly terms it ' a 
masterpiece of burlesque ' — it abounds in passages 
of really fine poetry. The plot is sufficiently 
exciting, the persons are graphically enough 
portrayed, to keep the reader's interest alive to the 
close. 

The scene is laid in Badajos. Firmilian, a 
student in the university there, is engaged in 
composing a tragedy of 'Cain.' Being determined 
to be realistic or nothing, he is sorely discouraged 
by his inability to paint adequately the remorse 
of which his hero was the prey. He soliloquises 1 

' I've striven 
To give due utterance to the awful shrieks 
Of him who first imbued his hands in gore — 



Firmilian. 37 



To paint the mental spasms that tortured Cain. 
How have I done it ? Feebly. What we write 
Must be the reflex of the thing we know ; 
For who can limn the morning, if his eyes 
Have never looked upon Aurora's face ? 
Or who describe the sadness of the sea, 
Whose ears were never open to the waves 
Or the shrill windings of the Triton's horn ?' 

He decides that in order to accomplish his task 
he must do some deed so dreadful that he shall 
himself endure the pangs of remorse: 

' What ! craven'mind, 
Shrink'st thou from doing, for a noble aim, 
What every hour some villain, wretch, or slave 
Dares for a purse of gold ? It is resolved — 
I'll ope the lattice of some mortal cage 
And let the soul go free !' 

Then Firmilian proceeds to run over some of 
his acquaintance from among whom he may 
select the fittest victim. In doing so he reveals 
so much of a career as might have been reason- 
ably the source of genuine remorse to ordinary 
men. For example, there is Lilian — ' the tender, 
blushing, yielding Lilian ' — who has proved that 
she loves him only too well ; but he will not slay 
her for fear of her uncle, an Inquisitor, who might 
make awkward inquiries. Moreover, as he argues, 
her destruction would not really cause him re- 
morse, for it would in one sense be an act of 
mercy, saving her from the misery and shame 
which is the penalty she is about to pay for their 



38 Fourth Day. 



amour. Mariana, his betrothed, he will not hurt, 
for she will bring him much wealth in their mar- 
riage. A third mistress, Indiana, he spares 
because he is not yet tired of her ; and Haverillo, 
a poet and his intimate friend, because he has 
acknowledgments of Firmilian's which might be 
enforced by his heirs. Finally, he resolves to 
poison three dear friends who are going to sup 
with him on the morrow. 

This is accomplished in the third scene, one of 
genuine intensity. During the supper the friends 
fall out, blows are struck, and Firmilian's design 
is like to be anticipated by bloodshed. But the 
quarrel is patched up by the common-sense of 
Olivarez, who speaks plain prose to the blank 
verse of the others, and a meeting is arranged for 
the next morning between D'Aguilar and Firmilian. 
The latter produces a choice vintage of Ildefronso 
(whatever that may be), and all drink to the king. 
Then Firmilian : 

1 Drink to another King, 
Whose awful aspect doth o'erawe the world — 
The conqueror of conquerors— the vast 
But unseen monarch to whose sceptre bow 
The heads of kings and beggars ! 

Perez. 

That's the Pope. 

Firmilian. 

No, not the Pope ; but he that humbleth Popes. 
Drink to King Death ! You stare and stand amazed — 
O you have much mista'en me if you think 



Firmilian. 39 



That some slight spurting of Castilian blood, 

Or poet's ichor, can suffice to lay 

The memory of to-night's affront asleep. 

Death has been sitting with us all the night, 

Glaring through hollow eye-holes — to the doomed 

He is invisible, but I have seen him 

Point with his fleshless finger ! But no more — 

Farewell ! I go : and if you chance to hear 

A passing bell— be it a comfort to you ! [Exit.' 



The others remain, discussing their friend's 
strange behaviour, till, the poison beginning to 
work, they die in agony, while the passing bell 
tolls, monks are heard chanting the Penitential 
Psalms, and slow and wailing music sounds as the 
scene closes. 

Next day Firmilian is chagrined to find that 
his crime has brought him no knowledge of 
remorse ; but this only strengthens his determina- 
tion to do something that shall enlighten him as 
to what Cain endured. He is meditating in the 
cloisters when a priest and a graduate appear ; 
their conversation, which he overhears, suggests 
to him a new atrocity. Great is the temptation, 
did space permit, to quote the whole passage, for 
it abounds in really fine poetry. The graduate is 
obviously Mr. Ruskin in masquerade (it will be 
remembered that ' Modern Painters ' bore on the 
title-page ' by a Graduate of Oxford ') ; he is in- 
veighing eloquently against the Renaissance 
architecture of the cathedral, and finishes his 
diatribe : 



40 Fourth Day. 



1 Yea, do not marvel if the earth itself, 
Like a huge giant weary of the load, 
Should heave them from its shoulders. I have said it ; 
It is my purpose, and they all shall down ! \ExW 

Firmilian sees his opportunity ; the priest is 
very angry at the irreverent words spoken by the 
graduate ; Firmilian joins him and impresses him 
with their sinister import, designs and carries 
out a plot to blow up the cathedral during Mass ; 
the guilt is fixed on the graduate by his own ex- 
pressed intention ; he pays the forfeit of his life, 
but the student still awaits in vain the anticipated 
horrors of remorse. ' 'Twas a grand spectacle,' 
he exclaims : 

* The solid earth 
Seemed from its quaking entrails to eruct 
The gathered lava of a thousand years, 
Like an imposthume bursting up from hell ! 
In a red robe of flame the riven towers, 
Pillars and altar, organ-loft and screen, 
With a singed swarm of mortals intermixed, 
Were whirled in anguish to the shuddering stars, 
And all creation trembled at the din. 

* * * * * 

And yet — and yet — what boots the sacrifice ? 
I thought to take remorse unto my heart, 
As the young Spartan hid the savage fox 
Beneath the foldings of his boyish gown 
And let it rive his flesh. Mine is not riven — 
My heart is yet unscarred.' 

His next attempt to gain the wished-for end is 
carried out by flinging his gentle poet-friend, 



Firmilian. 41 



Haverillo (in whom it may be suspected that 
Aytoun designed a humorous reflection of his own 
personality), from the top of a high column ; after 
which crowning treachery he gives up his quest 
in despair. He comes to the conclusion that he 
is not meant to excel in tragedy, and resolves to 
become the poet of love : 

' A graduate I, 
And an expert one, too, in Cupid's lore — 
What hinders me to raise a richer song 
Than ever yet was heard in praise of love V 

He conceives the idea of inspiring his muse by 
the delights of a joint-establishment, in which his 
three mistresses and himself shall fathom all the 
depths of rapture. He leads Mariana into a 
garden, and, after getting her to acknowledge that 
a bouquet is more perfect than a solitary rose, 
translates the metaphor into reality by bringing 
to her first Lilian, then Indiana. A lively scene 
(as might be expected) follows : Mariana is nobly 
indignant, Lilian is horrified, and Indiana is 
frightened out of her senses. 

The Inquisition was a dread reality in Badajos. 
Aytoun makes use of a gentleman who relates 
some of its doings to deliver a sly poke at Carlyle, 
who, under the name of Teufelsdrockh, has been 
condemned by it : 

1 He most earnestly 
Denounced all systems, human and divine ; 
And so, because the weaker sort of men 



42 Fourth Day. 



Are oft misled by babbling, as the bees 

Hive at the clash of cymbals, it was deemed 

A duty to remove him. He, too, spoke ; 

But never in your life, sir, did you hear 

Such hideous jargon ! The distracting screech 

Of waggon wheels ungreased was music to it ; 

And as for meaning — wiser heads than mine 

Could find no trace of it. . . . 

Faith, when I heard him railing in crank terms, 

And dislocating language in his howl 

At Phantasm Captains, Hair-and-leather Popes, 

Terrestrial Law-words, Lords, and Law-bringers — 

I almost wished the Graduate back again ; 

His style of cursing had some flavour in 't.' 

The suspicions of the Inquisition are roused by 
Firmilian's accumulated crimes ; he has to fly, 
and the last scene shows him hunted to death by 
ignes fatui on a barren moor. In the perusal of 
the poem the attention is so well riveted by 
the constant, though extravagant, action, the 
imagination so powerfully stirred by the flowing 
verse, that it is provoking to remember that the 
author has been laughing all the while behind his 
mask. Some good people were annoyed when 
the . fun was explained ; serious folk asked why 
the writer who gave so much evidence of poetic 
power should fritter his gift in fooling — however 
excellent. But good jokes are not so common 
that we need set little store by this one, nor is its 
value less because its literary merit is very far 
above the average. 



V. 
BULWER'S ARTIFICIAL CHANGELING. 



BULWER'S ARTIFICIAL CHANGELING. 

THE seventeenth century was the doldrums 
of English philosophical writing. Bacon 
had claimed all knowledge as his pro- 
vince, but the light which he had kindled had 
served but to show how greatly it was beyond 
the power of a single mind to explore its re- 
cesses. Henceforward the lines of dogmatic 
theology and natural science were to lie further 
and further apart ; there was no more place for 
the universal genius, and only specialists, like 
Harvey and Newton, could contribute to the sum 
of human intelligence. Writers and students of 
the old school still abounded : their works, stored 
in calf, darkened with lapse of years, may be con- 
sulted to this day in many a country house 
library ; but they are, for the most part, dreary 
subjects of study, full of parade and irrelevant 
exercise of pedantry, and teeming with quota- 
tions from dead authors. Every kind of written 



46 Fifth Day. 



evidence is cited ; awful eye-openers by Sir John 
Mandeville jostle extracts from Herodotus and 
Pliny, supported by opinions of the Fathers of 
the Church ; the existence of monsters and the 
occurrence of prodigies could not, it was thought, 
be called in question, were they only vouched for 
(on hearsay) by sufficiently sonorous authority. 

John Bulwer was a learned man, who really 
accomplished so much, that it is provoking to 
have to search for the grains of sound wheat which 
he garnered among heaps of bombast and worth- 
less references. It was he who first persuaded 
his countrymen that persons born deaf and dumb 
might be made to receive instruction. Until he 
propounded his scheme for an Academy of the 
Mute, these unfortunates were as completely 
neglected and regarded as hopeless as if they 
had been born idiots. Something, indeed, had 
been already done for them by the devotion of 
certain monks in Spain, for Sir Kenelm Digby 
had already reported how the brother of the 
Constable of Castile ' was taught to hear the 
sounds of words with his eyes/ But it was 
Bulwer who began the merciful work in this 
country. It is strange that, although he was 
the author of a treatise entitled ' Chirologia, or 
the Natvrall Langvage of the Hand,' the forma- 
tion of alphabetical signs with the fingers, as 
now taught to deaf mutes, never seems to have 
occurred to him. He advocated instead, and 
successfully taught, ' the subtile Art, which may 



Bulwer's Artificial Changeling. 47 

inable one with observant Eie, to Heare what 
any man speaks by the moving of his lips.' 
Perhaps the difficulties of spelling, then still at an 
exhilarating stage of chaos, put the art of speaking 
on the fingers beyond the power of most pupils. 

In this enterprise Dr. Bulwer proved a 
thoroughly successful reformer ; but when, later 
in life, he attacked that which has been the 
theme of satirists, moralists, and artists in all 
ages — the fashionable disfigurement of the human 
form — his book, though it lived through a second 
edition, left its readers and their posterity as 
perverse in the caprices of the toilet as ever. 

In our day a spirited and polemical title-page 
is the exception in the works of scientific men. 
But it was otherwise in the sixteen-hundreds, 
and Bulwer was not afraid to fling down the 
gauntlet on the threshold. Here is the thunderous 
legend which served as title to the edition in 
quarto of 1653 : 

1 Anthropo?netamorfthosis : Man transformed: OR THE 
ARTIFICIAL CHANGLING Historically presented. In 
the mad and cruell Gallantry, foolish Bravery, ridiculous 
Beauty, filthy Finenesse, and loathsome Loveliness of most 
NATIONS, fashioning and altering their Bodies from the 
mould intended by NATURE ; with Figures of those 
Transfigurations. To which artificiall and affected Deforma- 
tions are added, all the Native and Nationall Monstrosities 
that have appeared to disfigure the Human Fabrick. With 
a VINDICATION of the Regular Beauty and Honesty of 
NATURE. And an Appendix of the Pedigree of the 
ENGLISH GALLANT.' 



48 Fifth Day. 



The introduction is worded reasonably enough, 
and at once engages our sympathy, besides prick- 
ing us not a little with a sense of shame. For, 
were John Bulwer to waken from his sleep of 
two centuries and a half, and walk the earth 
again, he would encounter almost as much to 
rouse his ire as he set himself to denounce whilst 
living. Here is the text on which he preached : 

* I would have all possible meanes used to prevent all 
unnaturall and monstrous Incroachments upon the Humane 
forme, and where there happens any, to reduce it to the 
Naturall State : that so the bodies of men might (as neere as 
can be) appeare unblemished and accompanied with all the 
requisites of beauty it enjoyed in its originall perfection.' 

Perhaps the only fashion of that day which 
modern gallants have found enough self-respect 
to discard is that of wearing artificial hair. Yet, 
no one need despair of witnessing a return to 
love-locks, for, although the Doctor wrote of hair- 
powder as a thing of the past — a dirty cosmetic 
which would never be seen again England — he 
had scarce been in the grave for fifty years before 
hardly a pate could be shown in good society 
unless encrusted with powder. By this analogy 
it would seem unwise for the Bench and the Bar 
to count upon perpetual monopoly of periwigs. 

Another fashion, which Bulwer mentions with 
scorn as having been lately gone out of fashion, 
is one to which Ovid gave a place among the 
remedies of love — that of ' frizling and curling of 



Bulwer's Artificial Changeling. 49 

Haire with hot Irons, an artificial imitation of a 
naturall bush of Haire ' ; but it is certainly in high 
favour at the close of the nineteenth century. 
It is one of the least objectionable tricks of the 
toilet, contributing not a little to feminine beauty 
by softening the line between hair and forehead 
which, in countenances of a Teutonic cast, is apt 
to be rather harsh. Herein is a remarkable 
illustration of the caprice of human fancy, for 
whereas northern nations are at pains to acquire 
curly heads, Negro and Australian aborigines, 
when brought into contact with Europeans, show 
the utmost impatience to get rid of the natural 
frizzle. 

Rational and impartial philosopher as he 
claimed to be, John Bulwer showed something 
short of candour in respect to another habit of 
treating the natural hair. He had plenty of 
censure to pour on the eccentricities of tonsure 
affected by semi-civilized and barbarous nations, 
but he was silent about the custom of shaving 
some parts of the face and leaving others hairy. 
He hardly could afford to be otherwise, and the 
reason is apparent in a portrait of the author which 
adorns his second edition. It is an excellent en- 
graving by Faithorne, and shows a handsome man 
in the prime of life and pink of fashion, with 
shaven cheeks, a moustache and pointed chin-tuft, 
trimmed in the fashion to which the last French 
Emperor bequeathed the title of ' Imperial/ 
Now, there are many modes of shaving infinitely 

4 



50 Fifth Day. 



more disfiguring than this one ; still, it is just 
one of those * phantasticall Emendations of 
Nature ' to inveigh against which was the whole 
motive of this book, intended as it was to be ' a 
Glasse for the pernitiously affected Gallants of 
our time to looke in.' The philosophical reader 
might see as much absurdity in the chin-tuft 
worn by our author as in the frontal lock which, 
as cultivated by the Italians, he jeers at for * a 
high trespass committed against the Majestie of 
Nature.' 

But of a truth there is no more direct inter- 
ference with nature than is involved in the custom 
of wearing clothes, and it would tax a more pene- 
trating judgment than John Bulwer's to decide 
the limits of absurdity in these. He himself would 
attract some uncomplimentary attention if he were 
to appear at this day in the Mall in the romantic 
attire of our first Charles. However, he carries 
the sympathy of every sensible person to his 
attack on tight lacing : 

' No Maid here's handsome thought unless she can 
With her short palmes her streight-laced body span : 
Thus we most foolishly our life invade 
For to advance the Body-maker's trade.' 

It is a fond conceit that women dress to please 
men. No man, either of this or that period, ever 
felt the slightest admiration for an unnaturally 
small waist. 

Masculine raiment comes in for due reproof, 
and the Doctor shall tell a story in point in his 



Bulwer's Artificial Changeling. 51 

own words of what befell a gallant who was vain 
in the matter of trunk hose. 

1 He thought he excelled so much in this fashion that he 
stuffed a Follado of Velvet, that he did wear, with branne, 
and being set in seemely manner amongst some Ladies, to 
whom he desired to show his bravery and neatnesse, he was 
so exceedingly taken with delight that possessed him, that 
he could not take notice of a small rent which was made 
with a naile of the chaire that he sat upon, in one of his 
two pockets of branne (who thought the harm was but in 
his hose, yet he found it after in his heart) ; for, as he was 
moving and stroaking himself (with much gallantry) the 
branne began to drop out by little and little, without his per- 
ceiving it, but the Ladies that sat over against him and saw 
it (it being by his motion like meal that commeth from the 
Mill as it grindeth) laughed much at it, and looked upon 
one another, and the Gallant supposing that his good 
behaviour, mirth, and sporting, was pleasing to them, laughed 
with the Ladies for company ; and it so pleased him, that 
the more he strove to delight the company, the more the 
Mill did grinde forth the branne ; the laughter by little and 
little increased, and he appeared as confident as a man that 
had shed much bloud by a wound, untill he espied the heape 
of branne which came out of his hose, and then he began to 
recall himselfe, and dissembling his shame, he tooke his 
leave and departed.' 

And with this we take our leave of Dr. John 
Bulwer. 



VI. 

HAYWARD'S ART OF DINING, 



VI. 

HAYWARD'S ART OF DINING. 

THE life of Abraham Hayw^rd was one of 
success, to secure which, it would have 
seemed, every ordinary precaution had 
been neglected. He owed nothing, except exist- 
ence, to his parentage, which was no more than 
respectable ; none of his acquaintanceship, so 
numerous in after - life, originated in the usual 
way at a public school or a university, for he was 
at neither ; he inherited no fortune, but began life 
in a solicitor's office. No one could say how he 
came to be a guest so much coveted by expert 
hosts in town or country, and, ultimately, the 
arbiter, whose approval, if not essential, at all 
events ensured success in every social under- 
taking on which it was bestowed. It is true he 
had the knack of writing brightly in limpid Eng- 
lish, which brought him acquaintance with certain 
literary people ; but his contributions to the Morn- 
ing Chronicle and his essays in the Edinburgh and 



56 Sixth Day. 



Quarterly Reviews are not more remarkable than the 
work of many writers who have never risen out 
of the social ruck. It is needless for one who 
never saw him to speculate on the character of 
a man whom many still living remember; it is 
clear that Hayward was one of those whom a 
fine wit and sensitive instinct enable to derive 
from accidental environment advantages which 
great folks seek, often with greater expense than 
success, to secure for their sons. When a man 
like this sat down to write about the art of dining * 
he was sure not to be dull. No one was less likely 
than he to forget that the pleasure of every feast 
depends quite as much on what each guest brings 
with him as on the skill of the host and his chef. 

He denounced severely the practice of solitary 
gourmandise, and held that those who dine alone 
are little above the level of savages : 

' Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, 
To fill the languid pulse with finer joy.' 

Still, he was well able to appreciate the profes- 
sional zeal of the head garqon at Grignon's, who 
once apologized to him for the length of time 
required to prepare a particular dish, and, hand- 
ing him a neatly-bound octavo volume of bills- 
of-fare, said reassuringly, ' Mais monsieur ne 
s'ennuira point ; voila une lecture tres agreable !' 

Hayward's little volume is much more than a 
mere collection of recipes and cartes; like the 
* ' The Art of Dining.' London: Murray, 1852. 



HaywarcTs Art of Dining. 57 

more famous Physiologic du Gout of Brillat-Savarin, 
it is full of anecdote and aphorism, and of philo- 
sophy in which one has to decide for himself 
whether the author is serious or ironical. It is 
like an ideal dinner-party — the dishes are all that 
genius can project out of abundance, the wines 
are ripe and rich, and we are introduced to the 
company of the most amusing people who can 
be brought together. 

Nevertheless it is important that guests should 
be coaxed into a happy vein by perfection in the 
material part of the feast. Hence. the dignity in- 
separable from the profession of a great chef, on 
which Hayward lays due emphasis. ' Confidence 
gives firmness, and a quick eye and steady hand 
are no less necessary to seize the exact moment 
of projection, and infuse the last soupcon of 
piquancy, than to mark the changing fortunes of 
a battle, or to execute a critical winning hazard 
at the billiard-table.' He quotes with approval 
the remark of M. Henrion de Pensey, that the in- 
vention of a new dish is of infinitely more import- 
ance to humanity than the discovery of a star, for 
we have always stars enough, but we can never 
have too many dishes. This should cause search- 
ing of hearts in a land which, as yet, has produced 
but one original dish — ham and eggs — and but 
one sauce — melted butter ! 

But even great ' artistes ' are no more than 
mortal, and cannot shake from them the shackles 
of time and temperature. Sir Walter Scott puts 



58 Sixth Day. 



this confession in the mouth of one of the dinner- 
party at the little Derbyshire inn in ' Peveril of 
the Peak ' : ' We could bring no chaufettes with 
any convenience, and even Chaubert is nothing 
unless his dishes are tasted at the moment of pro- 
jection.' Sometimes they yield to despair : as 
when Vatel, distracted because the fish had not 
arrived, stabbed himself to the heart. At other 
times they throw the responsibility of failure upon 
those who cause it ; thus Lord Albemarle's con- 
fectioner, ' having prepared a middle dish of 
gods and goddesses eighteen feet high, his lord 
would not cause the ceiling of his parlour to be 
demolished to enable it to be placed. " Imaginez- 
vous," said he, " que milord n'a pas voulu faire 
oter le plafond !" ' Dr. Johnson declared that a 
man who is careless about his table will generally 
be found careless about other matters ; yet the 
Duke of Wellington was so culpably neglectful 
about what was set before him, that Felix, with 
whom Lord Seaford parted for economic reasons, 
and recommended to the Duke, refused to remain 
at Apsley House, but implored his old master, 
with tears in his eyes, to take him back at reduced 
wages or no wages at all. ' I serve his Grace a 
dinner,' he said, ' that would make Ude or Fran- 
catelli burst with envy, and he says nothing; I 
serve him a dinner dressed by the cookmaid, and 
he says nothing. I cannot live with such a 
master, if he were a hundred times a hero.' 
Johnson's own gastronomical sense was deplor- 



Hay ward's Art of Dining. 59 

ably coarse, his favourite dishes, according to Mrs. 
Piozzi, being ' a leg of pork boiled till it dropped 
from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, 
and the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef.' 
But even these were dainty plats compared with 
an impromptu combination which he once per- 
petrated by pouring lobster sauce over plum- 
pudding. 

In Hayward's time, as in our own, the sub- 
sidiary art of waiting was not generally under- 
stood. Servants in some houses are trained 
to a caricature of chivalry, by dodging about to 
offer dishes to ladies in the first instance, the 
result being the destruction of that automatic 
smoothness which ought to distinguish perfect 
attendance at table. Hayward gives an instance 
of the refinement which may be applied to the 
duties of waiting at table. In discussing Brillat- 
Savarin's advocacy of eprouvettes, he explains the 
right nature of eprouvettes by negation : 

'Cardinal Fesch, a name of honour in the annals of 
gastronomy, had invited a large party of clerical magnates 
to dinner. By a fortunate coincidence, two turbots of 
singular beauty arrived as presents to his Eminence on the 
very morning of the feast. 

'To serve both would have appeared ridiculous, but the 
Cardinal was most anxious to have the credit of both. He 
imparted his embarrassment to his chef. " Be of good faith, 
your Eminence," was the reply, "both shall appear; both 
shall receive the reception which is their due.'' The dinner 
was served : one of the turbots relieved the soup. Delight 
was in every face— it was the moment of the eprouvctte 



60 Sixth Day. 



positive. The maitre d? hotel advances ; two attendants 
raise the turbot, and carry him off to cut him up ; but one 
of them loses his equilibrium : the attendants and the turbot 
roll together on the floor. At this sad sight the assembled 
Cardinals become pale as death, and a solemn silence 
reigns in the conclave — it was the moment of the eprouvette 
negative; but the maitre d? hotel suddenly turns to the 
attendant : ,; Bring another turbot," said he, with the most 
perfect coolness. The second appeared, and the eprouvette 
positive was gloriously renewed/ 

It is by feats like these that cookery is exalted 
to a place among the arts of nations. 



VII 

JONSTON'S WONDERS. 



VII. 
JONSTON'S WONDERS. 

NO agreement has hitherto been reached as 
to where, in spiritual matters, the line 
may be drawn between faith and cre- 
dulity. Theologians affirm that men have ever 
been more prone to err in denying than in believ- 
ing too much ; but this can hardly be maintained 
of those matters which claim neither to rest on 
dogma nor proceed from revelation. In science 
the only safe method is searching and inexorable ; 
even the Society for Psychical Research has been 
constrained to adopt it, greatly to its good repute 
among philosophers, but vastly to the disappoint- 
ment of some of its original members. 

It was not always thus. Authors had a capital 
time before the age became so abominably scep- 
tical, and appetite for the marvellous gave place 
to a thirst for knowledge. A couple of centuries 
ago a writer might take up almost any subject, or 
as many subjects as he felt inclined for, with 



64 Seventh Day. 



reasonable certainty of rinding plenty of readers. 
There is nothing to show that the most astound- 
ing ' eye-openers ' excited any suspicion in the 
minds of the reading public, or that their authors 
were looked on more dubiously than such genuine 
eye-witnesses as Ixtlilxochitl or Marco Polo. The 
quotation of some earlier authority was all the 
evidence required ; and if the alleged marvels 
stuck in the throat of someone less credulous 
than his fellows, he proceeded to their refutation 
by quoting other and still earlier authorities. To 
this day, ninety-nine out of every hundred new 
books may be set down as containing no original 
thought or fresh fact ; all their matter has been 
printed over and over again in different forms. 
But modern readers have a distaste for obvious 
compilation ; writers are expected to throw a 
semblance of originality over the stale ideas, and 
give them the guise of independent observation, 
much as a skilful cook knows how to produce 
dainty dishes out of yesterday's joints. But until 
the close of the seventeenth century it was other- 
wise. The press gave birth to huge folios and 
quartos, crammed by scholars with information 
already stored in the folios and quartos of their 
predecessors. Everyone who has idled his morn- 
ing away in the library of some old country- 
house must be familiar with this class of work — 
must have marvelled at the excruciating assiduity 
with which such volumes have been compiled, 
have wondered how in the world our ancestors 



Jonston's Wonders. 65 

ever could afford to buy them in days when cash 
was notoriously scarce, and what satisfaction they 
could derive from them when bought. 

Now and then one lights upon a book of this 
kind, redeemed from commonplace either by its 
naivety and quaint language or by its rarity. 
Such an one came into my hands lately, which, 
seeing that it is unrecorded by the all -but- 
omniscient Lowndes, may be held to be a scarce 
volume. It is in folio, and bears the following 
title : ' An History of the Wonderful Things of 
Nature : Set forth in Ten Severall Classes. 
Written by Johannes Jonstonus, and now Ren- 
dered into English by a Person of Quality 
London, 1657.' I n an epistle dedicatory to 
Edward, Lord Montague, Earl of Manchester, 
the ' Person of Quality ' surrenders his anony- 
mity, not only signing himself ' John Rowland, 
but reminding his patron that he was ' formerly a 
Schollar at Eaton Colledge, and contemporary 
with your Honour ; and that I once had the 
happinesse to be domestick Servant unto your 
Honour's Noble Father ;' with which somewhat 
conflicting account of himself Mr. Rowland makes 
his bow and introduces Johannes Jonstonus. In 
the three hundred and fifty pages which follow, 
Mr. Jonston deals with ' the wonders of the 
heavens, of the elements, of birds, of four-footed 
beasts, of insects and things wanting blood, of man,' 
etc. It would be paying him too high a compli- 
ment to say he treats of these ; rather, having 

5 



66 Seventh Day. 



collected from every available source all that has 
been asserted or speculated about them, he piles 
the indigestible mass before the reader, and leaves 
him pretty much alone to gratify his taste. One 
with an appetite for marvels will have no difficulty 
in satiating it. In our own day, the facts com- 
pressed into ' popular science ' writings have been 
pretty well sifted by genuine research. Stress is 
laid on the beauty of nature, and the adaptation 
of means to ends. But for any such feeling the 
treatises of the old school may be searched in 
vain. Nature was regarded as a system of 
arbitrary affinities and repulsions, of hurtful and 
violent properties, mingled pell-mell with those 
that are useful and beneficial. Throughout the 
whole of this portentous tome there is no hint of 
reverence for what is beautiful ; nothing is thought 
worth mentioning unless it is either terrible or 
marvellous. Sometimes, but rarely, after the author 
has inflamed his reader to a rare pitch of astonish- 
ment by several papers of good thumping lies, he 
damps him down by disparaging parenthesis. For 
example, in the first chapter he observes that ' the 
raging elephant grows calm if he sees a ram, and 
if he sees a rhinoceros he is angry ' (the rhino- 
ceros, be it noted, is not the pachyderm known 
to us under that name, but, as is afterwards 
explained, a bird with a horny snout, probably a 
toucan) ; * Cattell almost dead, and men faint, are 
revived by the smell of bread ;' ' Porphyrio, a bird, 
will die if it look on a Whore ;' ' Turnsole will 



Jonston's Wonders. 67 

make men invisible, and quicksilver put between 
two reeds will hinder witchcraft.' For each of 
these statements (and hundreds of such) he quotes 
an authority ; and then, just as one is in a delicious 
ecstasy of amazement, he dashes it all by quoting 
one Delrius, who declares that some of them ' are 
fooleries, and confuted by propounding them.' 
Then why, it may be asked, is it worth the while 
of Mr. Jonston to report, and a person of quality 
to translate them ? On the other hand, Mr. 
Jonston cannot brook too simple an explanation 
of mysteries ; for, in discussing the ' originall of 
fountains,' he mentions that ' some would have it 
that the springs of water come from rain,' and 
adds 'this is scarce certain to believe,' for no rain 
sinks more than ten feet into the earth, and 
springs are found two hundred and three hundred 
feet deep. The curious conclusion he prefers is 
1 that fountains come from the sea by passage 
under the earth,' and winds up with the reflection : 
1 It is a hard matter to define all things, nor is it 
to our purpose.' 

Cruelty is ever the willing handmaid of super- 
stition, and it makes the flesh creep to reflect 
what unspeakable barbarities used to be prescribed 
in order to rid the human carcase of some of its 
ailments. Thus, a chapter upon that beautiful 
bird the kite (alas ! now all but extinct in these 
islands) concludes with the sentence : ' Burnt alive 
in a pot it (the kite) is said to cure the falling 
sickness.' Again, he says that ' a green lizzard, 



68 Seventh Day. 



putt alive into a new earthen vessell, and boyl'd 
with 3 Sextarses of wine to one Cyathus, is excellent 
good for one sick of the Pthisick, if he drink it in 
the morning fasting.' Less objectionable on the 
score of humanity is the remedy he offers for the 
bite of a scorpion : ' If he (the person bitten) sit 
upon an Asse with his face toward the tayl, the 
Asse will endure the pain and not he ;' and the 
following receipt may be commended to the 
favourable notice of the United Kingdom Alliance 
as a short-cut to total abstinence : ' Owls' eggs 
given for three days in Wine to drunkards will 
make them loath it.' Future Chancellors of the 
Exchequer, however, should be wary how they 
try to indemnify the revenue for any falling off 
caused by the anticipated conversion to temper- 
ance, for we read in another part of the book 
about some hot baths in Germany which went 
dry when there was a tax set upon them, and 
' something like this fell out in shell-fish at the 
Sluce, for when a kind of tribute was laid upon 
the collecting of them they were no more found 
there : they returned when the Tax was taken off.' 
Jonstonus enlivens his pages with some pretty 
good ' busters ' about the New World, where, he 
observes, some mountains are above fifty miles 
high. Yet he cannot endorse every tale he hears. 
* Some write that the devils hate St. John's-wort 
so much that the very smell of it drives them 
away. I think this is superstitious.' But he 
thoroughly believes in the potency of certain other 



Jonston's Wonders. 69 

herbs. ' If Oxen disagree, lay loosestrife on their 
yokes and they will be quiet.' ' Mustard, besides 
preserving one's health, ascends high into the 
closet of reason, where the mind resides,' and it is, 
therefore, recommended for ' stupidity proceeding 
from moisture.' Perhaps the solitary bit of 
original observation in the whole book is that 
contained in a marginal manuscript note to the 
chapter on the pike. ' It hath a natural Enmity 
with the Frog,' quoth Jonstonus ; ' A proper bait,' 
someone has written on the margin of the page 
now before me. Implicit credence, of course, is 
claimed for the venerable fable that ' clak-geese ' 
are hatched out of barnacles, and many pages of 
argument are devoted to its support. Perhaps a 
single other quotation from this worthless treatise 
may be endured as a typical example of the 
author's style : ' Subus is an Amphibion with two 
Horns : he follows shoals of fish swimming in the 
Sea : Lobsters, Pagri, and Oculatae are fishes that 
love him, but he cares for none of their love, but 
makes them all his prey.' 

Looking back over the troubled record of the 
seventeenth century, it is difficult to imagine how 
it was worth anyone's while to hold aloof from the 
stirring events which at this distance of time seem 
to have involved every section of the community, 
in order to compose or translate this farrago of 
rubbish. Eleven years before it was published 
Sir Thomas Browne's inquiries into vulgar errors 
had appeared. He may be credited with having 



70 Seventh Day. 



exploded many fallacies, yet it should not be for- 
gotten that, cynic and philosopher as he was in 
some respects, he was also a firm believer in 
astrology, derided the idea of the earth going 
round the sun, and gave evidence for the prosecu- 
tion in the trial of some witches. Nor must we 
be unmindful of the beam that some of us suspect 
to be in our own eye. There are still many genteel 
persons who endure genuine alarm if they find 
themselves seated at a dinner party of thirteen, 
while others there be who do fondly trace the in- 
fluence of the moon upon the weather ; and have 
we not all agreed to entrust the destinies of our 
country to * the collective wisdom of individual 
ignorances?' It was Sir Horace Walpole who 
wrote to Sir Horace Mann : ' If curing old errors 
will prevent the world falling into new ones — a la 
bonne heure /' 



VIII. 

ST. JOHN'S HIGHLAND SPORT. 



w 



VIII. 
ST. JOHN'S HIGHLAND SPORT. 

HEN a new book comes out I go to my 



The key of so much of the book-lover's 
delight lies in this observation, that it is disgrace- 
ful to have forgotten who made it. To no class 
of literature may the precept be more fitly applied 
than to that which has field-sports for its theme. 
The contemporary production is so huge — from 
the encyclopaedic series of the Badminton Library 
to the hebdomadal volumes that issue from the 
offices of the Field — that one finds solace in the 
thought that, the latest inventions apart, a few 
old favourites really contain all that is required 
to instruct the sportsman in his art or tune his 
spirit to the right key. As to shooting, one 
turns with a sigh of relief from the modern 
chronicle of bloated bags to the works of some 
of the older writers, who looked on slaughter as 
only one — and that not always the principal — 



74 Eighth Day. 



object of woodcraft : the study of wild animals 
in their haunts, the delight in natural scenery, 
and the training of the finer and nobler qualities 
of dogs, being reckoned quite as essential to 
enjoyment. Such a book is Charles St. John's 
' Natural History and Sport in Moray' (Edinburgh : 
Edmondston and Douglas, 1863). Without any 
pretence to literary grace — for the most part it 
consists of jottings in a journal — every page is 
full of interest. One seems in its perusal now to 
smell the odour of the damp ground under the 
pines, now to shiver in the gale sweeping over 
the salt marshes, to lie on the hillside among the 
grasses moving softly in the summer breeze, and 
anon to feel the frozen snow crunching under 
foot. The secret is revealed by the author when 
he tells us that he has put down nothing of which 
he could not verify the authenticity, and has 
been careful to avoid hearsay. This method is 
in marked contrast to that of the ' Person of 
Quality ' whose lucubrations were noticed in the 
last paper. 

Charles St. John entered life in 1828 as a clerk 
in the Treasury. In that capacity he was a dis- 
tinct failure, and after four years' trial he gave up 
the appointment. It must be confessed that his life 
was, for awhile, unprofitable. Loafing about the 
Highlands, with little cash and no definite occupa- 
tion, he was lucky enough to marry a young lady 
of some fortune, who fell in with his views about 
country life and pursuits; and thenceforward he was 



St. John's Highland Sport. y$ 

free to devote himself to natural history and sport. 
But he might very likely have lived and died un- 
known, except to a few farmers and gamekeepers 
in his neighbourhood, but for the happy accident 
of some stress of weather that, ten years after his 
marriage, constrained him to take a night's shelter 
with Cosmo Innes, who used to stay in a cottage 
near Forres. His host, being struck by St. John's 
fund of information on his favourite subjects and 
the precision of observation on which it was 
founded, asked him after dinner why he did not 
employ his leisure in writing on sport and natural 
history. St. John laughed at the idea, saying that 
he had no turn for scribbling, being quite pleased 
if he could write a decent note to a correspondent. 
But in the end Innes persuaded him to try, with 
the result that during the winter St. John sub- 
mitted to his new friend several ' little essays on 
mixed sport and natural history.' One of these, 
the story of the ' Muckle Hart of Benmore,' Innes 
incorporated in an article he contributed in 1845 
to the Quarterly Review. Afterwards he read to 
St. John a letter from Lockhart, the editor, ex- 
pressing a very high opinion of Innes's unknown 
collaborator, and insisted on dividing the produce 
of the article with him. St. John was greatly 
pleased at the first-fruits of his pen, set to work 
systematically, and next year saw the publication 
of his essays under the title, ' Wild Sport and 
Natural History in the Highlands.' But it was to 
the smaller and posthumous volume on Moray 



j6 Eighth Day. 



that the precept at the head of this paper was 
lately applied, a book in which is so apparent the 
truth — the secret of all good literature — that the 
writer shall have something to say. Few men 
can write from experience of stalking and killing 
a stag without assistance. The plan of the stalk, 
down to its minutest details — even to drawing the 
rifle from its cover — is arranged for most of us by 
the stalker. We know just enough to make us 
appreciate the narrative of how the Muckle Hart 
of Benmore was laid low. 

Death is the crowning act of all field-sports, 
and it is unnecessary to enter here upon the con- 
troversy about their consequent cruelty. But St. 
John never revels in slaughter. It is upon the 
minor incidents of a day on the hill or in the 
woods that he dilates with most enthusiasm. He 
opens the eyes of his readers to much that, with- 
out his guidance, would pass unregarded. Here, 
for example, is a piece of keen observation : 

' The eagle sits upright on some cliff of the same colour as 
himself, huddled up into a shape which only the experienced 
eye detects to be that of a bird. The attitudes and figures 
of the whole tribe of hawks are very striking and character- 
istic, and as unlike as possible to the stuffed caricatures 
which one usually meets with, and in which the natural 
character of the bird is entirely lost' (p. 53). 

In forwarding a pair of peregrines to be stuffed, 
he remarks in his journal : * I should not have 
shot the birds for any other reason than to 
oblige Mr. Hancock, and see them live again as 



St. John's Highland Sport. 77 

stuffed by him,' and he gives directions founded 
on accurate observation of the birds' habits : 

' I have a fancy that a peregrine should not be the apex 
of the group — i.e., that the rock should come up nearly as 
high as the bird's head. When I think of the peregrines 
wild, I remember them oftener as sitting on a projection 
rather than on the summit of a cliff' (p. 99, note). 

Like all true bird-lovers, St. John had a warm 
love for the nobler birds of prey. Keen sportsman 
though he was, he says (p. 51) : ' There is more 
beauty and more to interest one in the flight and 
habits of a pair of falcons than in a whole pack of 
grouse.' Yet grouse had for him attractions other 
than culinary. He tells us (p. 34) of a hen-grouse 
that was caught in a trap set for ravens, whose 
mate brought a quantity of young heather-shoots, 
enough to fill a hat, and laid them beside the 
unlucky captive. The devoted bird must have 
spent hours in collecting them, and St. John 
records his deep remorse for the tragedy. One 
cannot help, however, even at this distance of 
time, rejoicing that the mishap to the grouse 
frustrated the capture of a less innocent, though 
rarer and more intellectual bird, the raven. 

To return for a moment to the peregrines. 
St. John tells us enthusiastically of their generous 
and docile disposition, which, combined with 
their great courage, renders them capable of high 
training ; but he also records an example of their 
ferocity. One that he had as a pet, who lived 
for some years in perfect amity with an owl, 



yS Eighth Day. 



ended by quarrelling with the latter over their 
meals, and not only killed, but ate her ! In spite 
of this misdeed, he does not lose faith in bird- 
nature. 'There are few wild birds or other 
animals,' he says, ' which could not be tamed 
and made useful to us if, instead of constantly 
persecuting them, we treated them with hospi- 
tality and allowed them to live in peace and 
plenty.' It is indeed a constant source of pain 
to the lovers of wild animals that the rarer a 
creature becomes the greater is the malignity with 
which it is pursued. This is brought home with 
simple pathos in the following record of the 
arrival of some of the most beautiful of our 
winter visitors : 

4 1 saw eight pure white swans arrive on the loch of Spynie 
on the 30th September. . . . Short as their time must have 
been in this land of fire-arms, I could plainly distinguish a 
large mark of blood on the side of one of them staining its 
snow-white plumage.' 

But when killing is the object, St. John has 
many wrinkles to impart to his reader. In wait- 
ing for wood-pigeons at roosting-time he advises 
the sportsman to ' remain quite motionless for a 
minute or more after the wood-pigeon has alighted, 
as for that time the bird is looking in all directions 
below her for any enemy. After having done this 
she is not so much on the alert, and the shooter 
can raise his gun without her taking the alarm.' 
Again, his directions for securing water-fowl when 
winged are useful. He points out that while 



St. John's Highland Sport. 79 

diving ducks, such as scaup and pochard, when 
wounded swim out to the middle of the lake, 
mallard and teal seek the shore, and may often 
be picked up an hour or two after shooting at 
them by hunting the grass and reeds of the margin 
with a retriever. It is to be wished, I shall add, 
that his consideration for dogs were more gener- 
ally observed. He always carried a biscuit for 
his retriever on cold days, and was careful when 
waiting for wild-fowl to give him a plaid or game- 
bag to lie on. He had no patience with sports- 
men who, returning to a comfortable fireside, a 
pipe, and other comforts, relegate their humble 
companion to one of those barbarous wooden 
boxes — too often the only shelter provided — in 
which, as he justly says, it must be hours before 
he gets dry and warm. The kitchen fire and 
plenty of nourishing food, to keep a good layer of 
fat on his ribs, he regarded as only fair to any dog 
who has much water work to go through. 

It is difficult to close these pages without 
making long extracts from them. Good writing 
on sport and natural history is far more common 
now than it was in St. John's day ; but there 
was an agreeable leisure and time to look about 
one in his method of pursuing wild animals, in 
which field-sports on the modern scheme are 
sadly deficient. 

Charles St. John's career is not one to be 
commended as an example to discontented clerks 
in Government offices. By a fortunate and happy 



80 Eighth Day. 



marriage he was enabled to make a fresh start 
after his initial failure ; but the odds were heavy 
against any such combination of chances. As it 
turned out, his life, brought to a premature close 
by paralysis at the age of forty-seven, showed 
what a sportsman may be, and too often is not. 



IX. 

TALLEMANT DES REAUX. 



IX. 
TALLEMANT DES REAUX. 

WHAT Brantome did for French society 
of the sixteenth, Tallemant des Reaux 
undertook for that of the seventeenth, 
century. He was one of the literary set which 
the Marquise de Rambouillet delighted to gather 
round her in the famous chambre bleu, and it was 
to that accomplished lady that he owed his 
familiarity with the Court and with people of 
fashion. For, in spite of his sonorous name, the 
parentage of Gedeon Tallemant des Reaux was 
no loftier than lower middle class ; and the 
peculiar bitterness and cynicism wherewith he 
chronicled the foibles and vices of august per- 
sonages was owing, probably, to resentment 
against the haughty bearing of the noblesse, and 
the disabilities imposed by custom on his own 
class. It requires an effort to realize, in these 
pluto-democratic days, the inflexible nature of the 
barrier which fenced off the families of feudal rank 



84 Ninth Day. 



from the French bourgeoisie of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. There is no parallel to it in modern society, 
and perhaps the excessive rigour of the distinction 
between chivalry and industry was not maintained 
in our country after the days of the Norman kings. 
Riches could effect no breach in it, for they con- 
ferred none of the privilege which hedged in the 
patrician houses ; but the intellectual revival 
which radiated from the Hotel Rambouillet 
helped men of law and letters to a station higher 
than that to which many of them belonged, 
though they still remained without the pale of 
the territorial families. 

Tallemant describes an instance of the effect 
on himself of this social code. A certain Madame 
Roger, daughter of a poor gentleman of Lorraine, 
had stooped to marry the son of a rich gold- 
smith in Paris, and, having a daughter to marry, 
gave a great ball. It was the custom, it seems, 
for smart young men to defray the charges of 
the musicians employed by their entertainers. 
Tallemant was present at Madame Roger's ball, 
and it happened to be his turn to pay the piper, 
a favour which the lady accepted indeed, but 
with marked coldness. ' Je voyois bien a sa 
mine qu'elle avait quelque honte qu'un bourgeois 
lui donnat les violons.' This sort of treatment 
rankled in the mind of Tallemant, and he took 
characteristic, though posthumous, revenge. The 
ten volumes of * Histoirettes,' edited by De 
Chateaugiron, Jules Taschereau, and Monmerque > 



Tallemant des Reaux. 85 

and first published in 1834, are filled with anec- 
dotes, mostly scurrilous, of Parisian society. If 
the benign influence of the Hotel Rambouillet is 
to be traced in these memoirs d'outre-tornbe, it is 
that, while treating of material very much the 
same as Brantome used in his ' Dames Galantes,' 
Tallemant employs terms a shade less gross. 
If his spade is not always called a spade, you 
are not left in the slightest doubt as to the real 
character of the implement. This much, how- 
ever, may be said for him (at least he says it for 
himself), that he wrote for the same object for 
which Grolier collected books — sibi ct amicis. 
His scandalous chronicle was not meant for 
publication, but for the private amusement of 
his intimates ; and, in fact, it lay unprinted for 
two centuries and a half. Possibly it is to this 
that we owe our acquaintance with this naughty 
writer, for his * Histoirettes ' are of the stuff apt to 
come as fuel to the hands of the common hangman. 
Tallemant enjoyed some distinction during his 
life for historical and poetical works, but, such 
is the irony of literary fame, none of these 
survived him ; and although his brother and 
cousin were both members of the French 
Academy, their writings have sunk into profound 
oblivion, while Tallemant's scurrilous gossip, if 
it has not secured his immortality, at least, is 
sure of attentive readers at this day. Consider- 
ing the lofty purpose which Madame de Ram- 
bouillet set before herself and her intimate friends 



86 Ninth Day. 



— that, namely, of raising social life out of the 
unsavoury slough in which she found it, and of 
creating a purer ideal in literature — the general 
tone of the ' Histoirettes ' is somewhat remark- 
able. Tallemant was constantly in the house 
of the Marquise, and acknowledges her as the 
authority for many of his stories ; 3'et he re- 
counts the annals of immorality with perfect com- 
placency, and smears some of his pages with 
sheer Rabelaisian filth ; whereby, without intend- 
ing it, he makes vice the reverse of attractive. 

What fascinates us is his vivid and naive 
description of manners and piquant illustration 
of character at a time of great literary and 
political activity ; both description and illustra- 
tion must have been greatly curtailed and modified 
had the work gone to the press during the life- 
time of the persons concerned. There is nothing 
of the toady in Tallemant des Reaux. An easy 
moralist at best, he spurns the principle quod 
licet Jovi non licet bovi, and etches the irregu- 
larities of the rich with an acid at least as 
mordant as he employs for those of the middle 
class. Though he was certainly at no pains to 
add lustre to the actions or characters of high 
or low, he did full justice to examples of de- 
voted courage shown by persons in humble life. 
He relates how M. de Bellegarde had given 
offence to the Marquise de Verneuil, who per- 
suaded her lover (or shall we accept Tallemant's 
limitation, and say — one of her lovers), the 



Tallemant des Reaux. 87 

Prince de Joinville, to attack M. de Bellegarde 
as he stood at the door of Madame Zamet's 
house, where the king was supping. M. de Belle- 
garde's people came to the rescue, and the Prince 
had to fly for his life, which he would probably 
have lost, had not the Vidame du Maas hap- 
pened to pass and, in chivalrous part, taken the 
weaker side in the melee. The Prince escaped, 
but the Vidame was severely wounded, and was 
carried into the house of Madame Zamet. That 
hospitable dame placed him in her own bed, 
where he was like to have died, for the physicians 
declared that no means or instruments at their 
command would extract the matter which gathered 
between his ribs. But the Vidame's valet did 
not shrink at the hazard of his own life from 
applying his lips to the wound until his master 
was cured. 

The pleasantest chapters are those which Talle- 
mant penned less as a libertine cynic than as 
a warm-hearted friend. There are still, it is 
believed, some simple souls capable of deriving 
more pleasure from descriptions of frank love- 
making and masculine sword-play, than from the 
puling of heterodox hesitancy, and mawkish 
maunderings around the sex problem ; people 
who find something more refreshing in the 
prodigious adventures of d'Artagnan than in the 
homely vicissitudes of a Scottish minister. To their 
attention maybe commended ' Histoirette clxxii.,' 
wherein the amours of Tallemant's bosom friend 



88 Ninth Day. 



Patru, and the beautiful coquette, Madame 
Levesque, are sympathetically related. Alexandre 
Dumas never penned anything more stirring ; 
and those who like psychological problems will 
find plenty of material for reflection in the con- 
duct of Patru, who, having fallen in love with 
Mademoiselle Turpin, holds it beneath his dignity 
to pay court to a mere girl, however lovely. 
But as soon as she marries the ugly avocat, 
Levesque, the play begins with spirit. Madame 
Levesq ue's beauty soon brings other admirers to 
her feet, among them one Abbe Le Normand, 
who, being jealous of Patru, arranges that another 
abbe, La Terriere, should act as spy on his 
rival. This plan fails, for La Terriere becomes 
as deeply enamoured of the lady as his brother 
abbe ; accordingly, the worthy pair resolve to 
obtain proof of Patru's criminality sufficient to 
convince the least suspicious of husbands. Patru 
is to receive absolution in Passover week ; the 
two abbes gain over the confessor, who reveals 
to them that Patru has confessed d 'avoir couche 
avec une femme mariee. This is enough for the 
abb^s, who hire an assassin to destroy Patru's 
good looks with vitriol ; but the ruffian, being 
one of ' milder mood,' with no stomach for that 
particular kind of villainy, betrays his employers 
to their intended victim. Shortly after, Levesque 
dies, upon which Patru, whose intentions were 
nothing if not strictly dishonourable, finding it 
as insipid to be the lover of a widow as that of 



Tallemant des Reaux. 89 

a maiden, tries to forget her. But she brings 
him back to captivity by appearing in church 
and elsewhere avec une foule de petits galants. 

The parts of this writer's works which have 
received most attention are those which describe 
the scenes within the celebrated Hotel Ram- 
bouillet, especially the chambre bleu. There is in 
his ink none of the accustomed gall when he 
traces the charms of the fascinating Arthenice, 
an elaborate anagram on her baptismal name 
Catharine, by which Madame de Rambouillet was 
known in her circle of precieuses, and, however 
much may be reprehensible in his stories, much 
must be forgiven to their author in gratitude 
for the details which he alone has preserved of 
this remarkable society. At the same time, the 
ill-natured gossip which Tallemant delighted to 
relate of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. was all 
received by him from Madame de Rambouillet. 
She had a bitter dislike for the Bearnais, and, 
bearing that in mind, it is possible to discount a 
good deal of Tallemant's detraction of the great 
king. He does not hesitate to insinuate that 
Henri was not insensible to physical fear. More 
strange, and even less credible, is the hint that 
the lover of la belle Gabrielle was not the vert 
galant he was reputed to be. Some interest 
attaches to the notice of persons who afterwards 
grew into reputation far exceeding his own. 
Thus he mentions Blaise Pascal as a garcon who 
invented an excellent calculating machine, and La 



90 Ninth Day. 



Fontaine as ce gargon de belles-lettres et qui fait des 
vers. 

Perhaps the most melancholy sentiment attach- 
ing to the memoirs of their time is in the 
constantly recurring notice of the ravages of 
small-pox. Of how many of Tallemant's female 
characters is it not recorded : die etait nee fort 
belle, mais la petite verole Vagatfo. Probably nothing 
contributes so much to a woman's material hap- 
piness as personal beauty. Our gratitude for 
comparative immunity from the loathsome scourge 
of small-pox should be in proportion to the 
suffering inflicted thereby in a less enlightened 
age. 



X. 
ACTS OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. 



X. 

ACTS OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. 

JOHN HILL BURTON excelled most men 
in the knack of extracting amusement out 
of the most arid tracts of print, and used 
to delight in discovering gems in the most un- 
promising places. To many of these he gave a 
pretty setting in his ' Bookhunter ' — one of the 
most charming books about books that ever was 
penned — and one is almost tempted to quote once 
more the oft-told tale of Mr. Justice Best's ' great 
mind ' as an instance of the amusement which 
even a law index may supply. Acts of Parliament 
offer still less promise of diversion than law- 
books, though even from them Burton had the 
knack of extracting amusement, and quotes an 
Act of George III. as an instance. The Bill, as 
originally drawn, ' proposed, as the punishment of 
an offence, to levy pecuniary penalty, one-half 
thereof to go to his Majesty and the other half to 
the informer ; but it was altered in committee, in 



94 Tenth Day. 



so far that, when it appeared in the form of an 
Act, the punishment was changed to whipping and 
imprisonment, the destination being left unaltered.' 
But a rainy day in a country house (the true 
book-lover's heure du berger) will be found all too 
short to exhaust the good things stored up in a 
volume of old Scots Acts of Parliament. 

Towards the end of the sixteenth century it 
dawned upon the rulers of Scotland that it was 
somewhat hard upon the lieges that the laws, which 
it was their duty to observe, had always been 
written in Latin, a tongue which had never been 
understood by the commonalty. Accordingly, King 
James VI. of Scotland directed Sir John Skene, of 
Curriehill, Clerk of the Register, to collect and 
translate into Scots all the Laws and Acts of the 
realm up to date, the result of which was the 
publication in 1609 of a handsome volume, 
entitled ' Regiam Majestatem : The Avid Lavves 
and Constitvtions of Scotland, faithfvllie collected 
fvrth of the Register, and other avid authentic 
bukes, fra the dayes of King Malcolme the 
second vntill the time of King James the first, 
of gude memorie,' etc., etc. Sir John's transla- 
tion, though known to be far from faithful, is an 
excellent specimen of the Scottish language of the 
day. Southron readers will not resent being 
reminded that broad Scots (as it is called now) is 
not merely a corrupt form of English. ' Hame ' 
and ' bane ' have not been altered from ' home ' 
and c bone,' but, on the contrary, are conservative 



Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 95 

forms of the Anglo-Saxon 'ham' and ' ban/ in 
the Scottish pronunciation ' Cawmul ' is preserved 
the true etymology of the name genteelly rendered 
* Campbell,' with a spurious Norman complexion, 
as if de Campo-bello. The Mercian dialect of 
Anglo-Saxon happens to have become the standard 
of English speech because the metropolis of South 
Britain was fixed between Thames and Humber ; 
but Lowland Scots is but one of the three great 
branches — southern, midland, and northern — into 
which Early English was cast.- Dr. Murray 
has pointed out that Richard of Hampole, who 
lived within a few miles of a place so thoroughly 
English as Sherwood Forest, and died in 1349, 
wrote identically the same language as his Scottish 
contemporaries, Wyntoun and Barbour. Many 
of the old spellings, which seem barbarous or 
arbitrary to modern eyes, are really grammatical 
forms which have been lost to our literature. We, 
for instance, make no distinction between the 
gerund or noun of action and the present parti- 
ciple ; but it is clearly shown in the following 
sentence from Sir John's Introduction : Congre- 
gation of men dwelland together ... for the 
better establishing of their estate.' We should 
write ' dwelling, establishing,' thus confounding 
two distinct parts of speech, the suffix -and of 
the participle having long ago been assimilated 
to that of -ing in the gerund. One more fact 
for the philologist, and then pass we on to notice 
some of the curiosities of ancient law. It is 



96 Tenth Day. 



interesting to find the etymology of the word bird 
(a thing bred, connected with Anglo-Saxon bredan, 
to breed) confirmed by its application to a quad- 
ruped. The short title of an Act of the seventh 
Parliament of James I., held at Perth in 1427, 
runs : ' The Woolfe and Woolfe-birdes suld be 
slain.' The latter, in the Act itself, are called 
' the quhelpes (whelps) of the Woolfes.' 

The requirements of a monarchical govern- 
ment could hardly be more succinctly expressed 
than they are in the preface to ' Regiam Majesta- 
tem,' viz. : * Twa things are necessare to ane 
King: ARMES, to dantoun his enemies; and 
LAVVES, to rule his peaceable subjects.' The 
mode of the first is prescribed from time to time. 
Under Wiljiam the Lion ' ilk laick landed man 
haueand ten punds in gudes and geir, sail haue 
for his bodie, and for the defence of this Realme, 
ane sufficient Acton (leathern jacket), ane basnet 
(helmet), and ane gloue of plate, with ane speare 
and sword. Quha hes not ane Acton and basnet, 
he sail haue ane gude habirgeon (breast-plate) and 
ane guid irn Jak (iron cuirass) for his bodie ; and 
ane irn knapiskay (headpiece) and gloues of plate.' 
As the use of gunpowder extended, the statu- 
tory armour was modified. The preamble of an 
Act of James V. (1540) sets forth the necessity of 
keeping pace with other nations in the art of war: 
1 Because the schot of gunnes, hagbuttes, hand- 
bowes, and vther small artaillarie, nowe commonly 
used in all Cuntries, baith be Sea and lande in 



Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 97 

their weeres (wars), is sa felloun (deadly) and un- 
eschewable to the pith of high courage of Noble 
and vailzieant men, quhais actes and deedes cannot 
be schawin without contrair provision bee had of 
weere and battell,' etc. 

Trial by battle and the ordeal by iron or water 
were a part of early judicial procedure in Scot- 
land, and are the subject of many statutes. But 
the ' dome be water and irn as hes bene used in 
auld times ' was abolished by an Act of Alexan- 
der II. (1214-1249), except in Galloway, where an 
Act of William the Lion gave the accused the 
option of 'visnet' (voisinage), that is, trial by 
jury, if he preferred it to the old-fashioned ordeal. 
Under a statute of the same king, fisticuffs were 
heavily discouraged : ' Gif ane man giues ane blow 
with his neiue (fist) and drawes blood he shall 
pay nine kine to the king and three to the man 
he struck;' but if he did not draw blood, then 
the fine is reduced to six and two kine re- 
spectively. But wife - beating was regarded 
with more leniency. King David (1124-1153) 
passed a law absolving a certain man who gave 
his wife ' ane blow with his hand to teach and 
correct her,' of which she died. It is true that it 
is set forth in the Act that ' sche being angry with 
hir husband after that day, wald not for na mans 
request eat or drink vntil sche deceased ;' and 
so it seems to be held that she died to spite her 
husband. 

It behoved persons of homicidal proclivities, 

7 



98 Tenth Day. 



living in the days of William the Lion, to be dis- 
criminating in the selection of their victims. The 
price of an earl's ' blude ' is fixed at nine kye, of 
an earl's son or of a thane * sax kye,' but of an 
husbandman only two kye ; yet if this be. held 
as showing that the law was a respecter of per- 
sons, it is gratifying to find that the principle was 
held that noblesse oblige, and that malefactors were 
punished with severity proportionate to their 
rank. A later example of this is given in an Act 
of Queen Mary (1551) ' anent them that swearis 
abhominable aithes.' The preamble sets forth 
that ' notwithstanding the oft and frequent 
Preachings, in detestation of the grievous and 
abhominable aithes (oaths), swearing, execra- 
tiones, and blasphematioun of the name of God, 
swearand in vain be his precious blud, bodie, 
passion and wounds, Devil stick, cummer, gore, 
roist, or reife them, and sik vther ougsum* aithes,' 
the following penalties shall be enacted for bad 
language, viz., ' Ane prelate of kirk, earle or lorde, 
for everie fault, twelue pennies ; ane barronne or 
beneficed man, constitute in dignitie ecclesiastical, 
foure pennies; ane landed man, etc., twa pennies; 
ane craftesman, seaman, ane servand-man, and 
all vthers, ane pennie ' ; thus making blasphemy 
an expensive luxury. As for ' the puir folkes that 
hes na geare,' whose feelings should find vent 
in Billingsgate, they were relegated to the 
stocks. 

* Ougsum, an archaic and alternative form of ' ugly.' 



Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 99 

Early Acts relating to the fauna of the country 
are interesting to the student of natural history. 
The forest laws were much milder than those of 
the early kings of England : if a man found in 
the king's forest * will sweir upon his wapons ' 
that he had lost his way, the forester ' sail convoy 
him to the common way and there sail suffer him 
to passe away without anie trouble ' ; but if he is 
proved to be poaching, 'the forestar sail take 
before witness his upmaist claith (mantle) and all 
quhilk is in his purse.' Directions for the slaughter 
of vermin are frequent : ' Ruikes, cravves (crows), 
and vther foules of riefe, as eirnes (eagles), bis- 
sertes (buzzards), gleddes, mittalles (hawks), sail 
all utterly be destroyed be all manner of men.' The 
1 slauchter of haires in time of snaw ' is forbidden 
under Robert III. The following is the statutory 
price of game in 1551, fixed on account of ' the 
great and exorbitant dearth risen in this Realme ' : 
crane and swan, 5s. ; wild goose, 2s. ; the claik 
(bernacle goose), quink (golden eye), and rute 
(brent goose), i8d. ; plover and small mure fowl, 
4d. ; black cock and gray hen, 6d. ; the * dousane 
of Powtes ' (young moorfowl), i2d. ; the quhaip 
(curlew), 6d.; the cunning (rabbit), 2S. ; the lapron 
(leveret), 2d.; the woodde -cocke, 4d. ; the snip 
and quailzie, 2d. None of the Acts quoted above 
— except, possibly, that against ' abhominable 
aithes ' — would be felt to be oppressive to the 
general public of our day ; but there would be 
considerable murmuring if some of the numerous 

LoFC. 



ioo Tenth Day. 



statutes prohibiting golf and football as ' vnpro- 
fitable sports for the common gude of the Realme ' 
were re-enacted. Probably the shortest Act of 
Parliament ever passed was one of James I. of 
Scotland, which runs thus : 'It is statute and 
ordainit that na man play at the futball.' 



XI. 

CAPTAIN TOPHAM'S LETTERS. 



XL 
CAPTAIN TOPHAM'S LETTERS. 

ADMITTING that it is profitable to see our- 
selves with the eyes of others, diversion 
may sometimes be had from minute de- 
scriptions of our forefathers, as they appeared to 
strangers, and North Britons of to-day may do 
worse than skim through a volume of * Letters 
from Edinburgh ; Written in the Years 1774 and 
1775 ' (Edinburgh, 1776). The author was one 
Captain Topham, an English Guardsman, who 
spent six months in the Scottish capital, shortly 
after Dr. Johnson and his henchman Boswell had 
been perambulating the Land o' Cakes, and at 
the very season when the publication of their 
tour had set Edinburgh society buzzing like a 
nest of angry wasps. The tenor of Captain Top- 
ham's observations will be found so much more 
agreeable to the national sensibilities than those 
of the great bookman, that one is disposed at 
first to suspect him of having been entrusted 



104 Eleventh Day. 

with a brief for his hosts, until it is remembered 
that these letters were addressed to private friends, 
and that many of them had been written and 
despatched before the appearance of Johnson's 
volume. When it did appear, Topham was in- 
dignant at what he reckoned to be its injustice ; 
and the excuses made by the man of the world 
for the narrow views of the man of the inkhorn 
form not the least diverting passages in his 
correspondence. 

' Poor Johnson, who probably had never travelled more 
than a few miles from London . . . must naturally be 
astonished at everything he saw, and would dwell upon 
every common occurrence as a wonder. . . . He found 
himself in a new world ; his sensations were those of a child 
just brought forth into daylight ; whose organs are confused 
with the numerous objects that surround him, and who dis- 
covers his surprise at everything he sees. Men of the world 
would not have descended to such remarks.' 

Topham brings graver charges than this against 
the philosopher, and, not hesitating to impugn his 
veracity, seems to have been at some pains to 
ascertain the truth as misrepresented by Johnson. 

It was a time of great social vitality in Scot- 
land. The legislative union with England had 
been in force for two generations ; the poorer 
country was just beginning to throw off habits 
of penury contracted during the centuries of 
hard fighting and heavy taxation which followed 
the War of Independence, but had not yet 
lost either its native peculiarities or the impress 



Captain Topham's Letters. 105 

of prolonged political intimacy with France. The 
difference between social customs at that time in 
London and Edinburgh was far greater than it is 
at the present day between those of London and 
New York. Practically, Scotland was still a 
foreign country to the Guardsman, who had not 
only a keen eye, 'but a pretty gift of expression 
whereby to communicate the result of his obser- 
vation. Perhaps the most surprising parts of his 
letters are those which draw a contrast between 
the manners and bearing of well-to-do people in 
the two countries. ' A man who visits this 
country after having been in France will find in 
a thousand instances the resemblance there is 
betwixt these two nations. That air of mirth 
and vivacity, that quick and penetrating look, 
that spirit of gaiety which distinguishes the 
French, is equally visible in the Scotch.' It is 
hardly possible to imagine any remark less likely 
to suggest itself to one who should now visit 
Scotland for the first time. Yet our author gives 
so many details of social peculiarities that it is 
impossible to suspect him of unkind irony. 

1 Whenever the Scotch of both sexes meet, they do not 
appear as if they had never seen each other before, or 
wished never to see each other again ; they do not sit in 
sullen silence, looking on the ground, biting their nails, and 
at a loss what to do with themselves ; and, if someone 
should be bold enough to break silence, start as if they were 
shot through the ear with a pistol ; but they address each 
other at first sight, and with an impressement (sic) that is 
highly pleasing.' 



io6 Eleventh Day. 



The bearing of good society being practically 
identical in the two countries at the present 
day, it must be left as matter for speculation 
whether Scottish levity has leavened the English, 
or English gravity reduced the Scots to their 
somewhat sombre mode of address. Cast- 
ing about for some reason to account for the 
debonair demeanour of the North Briton, Captain 
Topham propounds a curious psychological theory. 
He declares the French are gay because, being 
Catholics, they enjoy the ' blessed invention ' of 
absolution, which ' renders the spirits free and un- 
clouded, by placing all the burden of our sins upon 
another man's back ;' whereas the Scots, although 
as Presbyterians they have no absolution, yet 
' have something very like it — a superstitious 
reliance on the efficacy of going constantly to 
church,' where, he admits, they look so solemn 
that one might think they were not only going to 
bury their sins, but themselves ! 

But if he shows a generous appreciation of the 
social qualities of the Scots, our author devoutly 
prays to be delivered from all share in their sports. 
He betrays invincible ignorance of the august 
mysteries of golf, and profanely describes it in a 
paragraph wherein allusion is also made to ( the 
insignificant pastimes of marbles, tops,' etc. 
Golf an insignificant pastime ! Phoebus ! what a 
phrase ! We would have Captain Topham to know 
— but let that pass. He has just enough discretion 
to admit that ' some skill and nicety are necessary 



Captain Topham's Letters. 107 

to strike the ball to the proposed distance and no 
further, and that in this there is a considerable 
difference in players.' Heigho ! there be some of 
us for whom the path through life were less thorny 
if this were the whole matter. After all, there is 
something in Captain Topham's failure to appre- 
ciate the nobility of golf which may temper the 
acerbity of his criticism when he says that though 
Scottish gentlemen ' love shooting, hunting, and 
the pleasures of the field, they are proficient in 
none of them.' 

The hazard table was then in universal vogue, 
but owing to the scarcity of cash among fashion- 
able folk, the inconvenient habit of keeping books 
prevailed, and the gallant Captain's delicacy was 
sorely wounded by being referred to twenty 
different people before he could receive his 
winnings. He protests, also, with all his might 
against the practice of kissing ladies (in public, 
bien entendu), and fortifies his objection by many 
quotations from the classics. 

1 When I see a beautiful girl of sixteen approaching to be 
saluted by a row of strangers, it always gives me an idea of 
tasting before you bid : and removes from my imagination 
that semi-reducta appearance, which Ovid mentions as so 
pleasing in the figure of Venus.' 

On graver matters Captain Topham has plenty 
of praise to bestow. He mentions with enthusiasm 
the greater lenity of the Scottish, as compared 
with the English criminal code. No man could be 
capitally condemned for theft, unless he were 



108 Eleventh Day. 

proved a thief by habit and repute. Executions, 
therefore, were very uncommon, and, when they 
did take place, were conducted with more 
solemnity than in other countries. Topham 
was an eyewitness to a hanging in the Grass- 
market, and he draws a favourable contrast 
between the behaviour of the Scottish crowd and 
that of the people whom he had seen collected in 
Paris to view a poor wretch broken on the wheel. 
The French crowd applauded the dexterity of 
monsieur le bourreau ; whereas in Edinburgh, so 
great was the abhorrence of the office of execu- 
tioner, that the hangman had to be kept three or 
four days in prison till the popular excitement had 
subsided. 

In the matter of funerals, Scottish customs 
seem to have invaded England since Captain 
Topham's day, for he observes that, whereas in 
the south no signs of grief were ever seen, and 
the only attendants at the grave were hired 
mourners, in Scotland the relatives and friends 
accompanied the body to its resting-place 
with great solemnity. Moreover, the procession 
was always on foot, whereas, says the Captain, 
' you frequently meet an Englishman's hearse at 
full gallop, as if, after having been in an hurry all 
his lifetime, it was decreed he should find no rest 
even in death.' 

Captain Topham, as a cultivated man, takes 
pleasure in the literary flavour already diffused 
through Edinburgh society. Writing forty years 



Captain Topham's Letters. 109 

before the appearance of ' Waverley,' he was able 
to declare that ' there was never an instance of a 
man acquiring a fortune by the sale of his writings,' 
a state of matters for which he blames the law of 
copyright as it then stood between England and 
Scotland. He paid a visit to the printing-office of 
Foulis of Glasgow, the Aldine of the north, and 
describes how the head of that firm lost his pre- 
eminence in the trade by reason of his too 
exclusive devotion to collecting pictures ; where- 
upon the publishing and printing business 
migrated to Edinburgh, where it was destined to 
enjoy a distinction which has not yet wholly 
passed away. Captain Topham's friends enjoyed 
an enviable privilege in the receipt of these lively 
and well -expressed letters, from which there 
must have been expunged, previous to publication, 
many personal details and pungent anecdotes. It 
would not be easy for a writer in the last decade 
of this century to impart so much local colour to 
his pages, for the bane of uniformity has gone too 
far towards engulfing these islands in their length 
and breadth. 



XII. 

PITCAIRN'S CRIMINAL TRIALS. 



XII. 
PITCAIRN'S CRIMINAL TRIALS. 

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S indirect services 
to literature were hardly less fruitful than 
those of his own pen. So far was he 
from the necessity of cudgelling his brains for 
material for ' copy,' that he was continually 
setting others to work on subjects which even 
his ceaseless activity could not enable him to 
overtake. It is easy to understand the attraction 
a mind like his found in the early criminal records 
of his country, and it is well that he persuaded 
such a capable penman as Mr. Robert Pitcairn 
to the heavy task of arranging, transcribing, and 
editing these voluminous manuscripts. The result 
remains in four quarto volumes, printed in the 
masterly style of the house of Ballantine.* 

Of all records, there are none so dolorous as 
those of crime and its punishment. The reader's 

* 'Criminal Trials in Scotland from A.D. 1488 to 1624' 
Edinburgh, 1833. 



H4 Twelfth Day. 

gorge is made to rise as much by the stupidity 
and cruelty of obsolete judicial procedure and 
punishment as by the deeds of criminals them- 
selves. Nay, too often the judges were them- 
selves the chief malefactors, and their hapless 
victims were men, women, and children, accused 
of impossible crimes. It were incredible, were 
the facts not coldly set forth in the official 
records of the time, that within three centuries 
of the present year of grace the monarch him- 
self should have taken personal part in the ex- 
cruciating scenes which accompanied trials for 
witchcraft. Yet this seems to have been one of 
the duties most congenial to James VI. of Scot- 
land. In his notes on the trial of ' Johnne Feane, 
alias Cwninghame,' and others, for sorcery, witch- 
craft, and incantation (1590), Pitcairn reprints 
a rare tract called Newes from Scotland, which 
gives a full account of the sickening proceed- 
ings. It is stated that the confessions of these 
wretched people ' made the King in wonderful 
admiration, who, in respect of the strangeness 
of these maters, tooke great delight to be present 
at their examinations ' ; at which, no doubt, 
the royal author collected material for his work 
on ' Daemonologie.' 

And how were these examinations conducted 
and the confessions extracted ? Take a repre- 
sentative case : Geillis Duncan was the servant- 
maid of one worthy David Seaton, deputy-bailiff 
of Tranent, who, being annoyed because the girl 



Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. 1 1 5 

sometimes went out at night, and, moreover, 
' tooke in hand to help all such as were troubled 
or grieved with any kinde of sickness or infirmitie, 
and in short did perfourme many matters most 
miraculous,' resolved to ascertain if she were not 
a witch. 

1 Hir maister began to grow verie inquisitive, and examined 
hir which way and by what means she was able to performe 
matters of so great importance : whereat shee gave him no 
answere ; nevertheless, her maister, to the intent that hee 
might the better trie and finde out the truth of the same, 
did with the help of others torment her with the torture of 
the pilliwinkes upon her fingers, which is a grievous torture ; 
and binding or wrinching her head with a cord or roape, 
which is a most cruell torment also.' 

Finally, the conscientious bailiff got, as was to 
be expected, a confession from the girl exactly 
to his liking. This confession involved, among 
others, Dr. Fian or Cuninghame, a schoolmaster 
at Saltpans, upon whose unhappy person the law 
exhausted all the ingenuity of torture. Under 
the supreme anguish of the boots, he made a 
confession which was retracted as soon as the 
punishment ceased, ' whereupon the King's Majestie, 
perceiving his stubborn wilfulness . . . commanded 
to have a most straunge torment,' namely, his 
finger-nails were torn off with pincers, needles 
were thrust in their places, and that proving 
fruitless, Fian was 

1 with all convenient speede, by commandement, convaied 
again to the torment of the bootes, where he continued a 



1 1 6 Twelfth Day. 



long time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that his 
legges were crusht and beaten together as small as might 
bee ; and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the bloud and 
marrow spouted forth in great abundance ; whereby they 
were made unserviceable for ever.' 

The poor fellow could not be brought again 
to admit the charges against him, so the ' King's 
Majestie and his Councell' ordered him to be 
strangled and burnt. All which was done * by 
commandement ' of gentle King Jamie ! (Pit- 
cairn, i. 222). 

Sometimes the tribunal, not content with simple 
brutality, became fantastical in cruelty. In 1596 
took place the trial of John Stewart, Master of 
Orkney, for employing a witch to destroy his 
brother-germane, the Earl of Orkney. Recourse 
was had to torture by sympathy. Alison Bar- 
bour, the suspected witch, was first submitted to 
6 vehement torture of the caschielawis, quhairin 
sche was kepit be the space of 48 houris.' When 
her nerves had been reduced to a sufficient state 
of receptivity, her husband, aged 81, her son and 
daughter (merciful Lord ! the last was only seven 
years old), were put to the torture in her presence, 
' to this effect, that hir said husband and bairnis 
beand sua tormentit besyde hir, mycht move hir 
to mak ony confessione for their relief.' Another 
witness in the same case, Thomas Palpla, was 
kept in the 'caschielawis ' eleven days and nights; 
twice a day, for fourteen days in succession, he 
was put in the ' boots,' and scourged in such sort 



Pitcairn's Criminal Trials 117 

that 'thay left nather flesch nor hyde upoun him.' 
Both these witnesses recanted from their confes- 
sions when the torture was removed, and, being 
in consequence sentenced to death, persisted with 
their last breath in declaring that what they had 
confessed was false and extorted from them by 
extremity of pain (Pitcairn, i. 375). 

It is a relief to turn from these devilish deal- 
ings to the records of more manly crime. A long 
series of trials arose out of the ancient strife 
between the Johnstones of Annandale and the 
Maxwells of Nithsdale. This feud culminated on 
December 7, 1593, in a battle fought on Dryfe 
Sands, a flat plain now traversed by the Cale- 
donian Railway about two miles north of Lockerby 
Station. Lord Maxwell, then Warden of the 
Western Marches, had with him about 2,000 
troops, and may be held in virtue of his ofBce to 
have represented the cause of law and order — 
such as it then was. Johnstone, with an almost 
equal force, consisting, besides those of his own 
clan, of Scotts of Teviotdale, Elliotts and 
Grahames of Eskdale, besides ' divers English- 
men, tressounablie brocht within this realme,' 
attacked and routed the Warden, killing, as some 
authorities state, some 700 of his men* The 

* There is nothing less trustworthy than cotemporary 
estimates of the numbers engaged in border warfare, except 
the statements of the numbers slain. There can be little 
doubt that the list of killed at Dryfe Sands has been hugely 
exaggerated. 



n8 Twelfth Day. 

Jeddart axes, wielded by the men of Teviotdale, 
inflicted such ghastly slashes on the flying troops, 
that the phrase a ' Lockerby lick' is still preserved 
in the district to signify a deep wound. There 
stand at this day, on the banks of Dryfe, two 
thorn-trees, marking the spot where, it is said, 
the wounded Warden was lying when the Lady 
of Johnstone passed by. He appealed to her for 
succour, but she, mindful of the unnumbered 
wrongs, ' dingit out his harnis ' (knocked out his 
brains) with the castle key which hung at her 
girdle. The feud was, of course, taken up by 
John, seventh Lord Maxwell, son of the slain 
Warden, and, after twelve years of incessant 
skirmish and reprisals, a determined effort was 
made by the friends of both chiefs to bring about 
reconciliation. Accordingly Lord Maxwell, at- 
tended by his kinsman, Charles, and the Laird of 
Johnstone, accompanied by Will Johnstone, of 
Lockerbie, met on April 6, 1608, near the house 
of Beal, with Sir Robert Maxwell, of Spottis 
(Johnstone's brother-in-law), to act as buffer 
between them — fruitlessly as it turned' out, for 
the two seconds, who had been ordered to with- 
draw during the conference, soon got to high 
words and then to blows. Johnstone turned at 
the noise, whereupon Lord Maxwell treacher- 
ously shot him in the back. The wounded man 
fell, and 

* luikand up to the hevins, said : " Lord, haif mercie on me ! 
Chryst, haif mercie on me ! I am dissavit." Then the 



Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. 119 

Lord Maxwell cryet to Charlis, "Cum away." Then the 
said Charlis ansuerit, " My lord, will ye ryid away, and leif 
this bludie theif(Will Johnstone) behind you?" Then the 
Lord ansuerit, " Quhat rak of him — for the uther hes 
anewche !" And then thai bayth raid away togidder.' 

For this slaughter under trust, Maxwell was 
arrested and confined in Edinburgh Castle. Ap- 
parently, however, he was treated as what we 
should now call a first-class misdemeanant, for 
having assembled ' ane gritt number of the Keiparis 
of the Castell into his chalmer, quhair he drinkis 
theme all fow,' he made good his escape in a 
manner which is graphically described in the 
original depositions (Pitcairn, iii. 31), and fled 
the country. Four years later he had the temerity 
to return, and paid for it by the loss of his head 
— a penalty, it must be admitted, none too heavy 
for his unknightly crime. 

Human life was lightly disposed of in those 
days. John Fleming, in Cockburnspath, was 
hanged in 1615 for uttering ' dyuerse tressonable, 
blasphemous, and damnable speichis aganis our 
souerane lordis most sacred persone.' In the 
following year the same fate overtook John Faa 
and his son, Moses Baillie and his wife Helen, for 
no other reason than that they were gipsies, and 
because of their * contemptuous repairing to this 
cuntrie.' Eight more gipsies were sentenced to 
be hanged together in 1624, but, by an act of 
unusual clemency, their wives and daughters were 
only banished. After that it may be thought 



120 Twelfth Day. 

squeamish to murmur at the decree of perpetual 
banishment, under pain of death if he returned, 
passed on a profane wretch from Selkirk, whose 

offence layjin declaring that he didn't * care a 

of his for the Justices of the Peax.' So awful 

was the divinity that hedged a seventeenth-century 
beak ! 



XIII. 

BLAEU'S ATLAS. 



XIII. 
BLAEU'S ATLAS. 

IT may seem putting a strain on the term to 
treat of a collection of maps as literature, 
but those persons will not think so who have 
turned over the sumptuous pages of the ' Geogra- 
phia,' which issued from the famous printing-house 
of the Blaeus of Amsterdam during the latter half 
of the seventeenth century. It consists of twelve 
noble volumes in folio, bound in vellum (the right 
use of which seems to be lost to modern binders), 
upon which Time, far from prevailing to impair, 
has had only a mellowing effect. To the book- 
lover it is a delight merely to handle the ample 
leaves of pure flax paper, with their liberal margins 
flowing around double columns of beautiful type. 
How the workmanship and material put to shame 
the slatternly printing and flimsy pages of so 
many common modern books ! The title-pages 
are masterpieces, bearing impressions of plates 
measuring nearly seventeen inches by ten ; and 



124 Thirteenth Day. 

the maps themselves are adorned with heraldic 
and other illustrations of a high degree of merit. 

But the ' Geographia Blaveana ' has a more 
technical claim to be classed as literature than any- 
conferred by subsidiary adornment. The maps are 
embedded in a perfect encyclopaedia of learning, 
comprising not only geography and topography, 
but writings by the best authorities of the day 
on history, anthropology, philology, and natural 
science. All the known world was included in the 
scheme, the scale of which may be realized by the 
fact that the letterpress about France alone occu- 
pies seven hundred and eighty of these huge pages. 
It is, indeed, a complete history of the country, 
the author of which remarks somewhat caustically 
in his preface : '. Ce qui nous a este une peine et 
labeur incroyable . . . comme les Historiographies 
ne conviennent pas tousiours sur les mesmes 
sujets, ce nous a este autant d'achopements, que 
nous avons rencontre d'opinions diverses.' One is 
reminded herein of a reflection in one of Horace 
Walpole's letters. Some flagrantly false piece of 
intelligence had appeared in the newspapers, upon 
which he observes that could we but obtain a 
Daily A dvertiser printed in the reign of Edward I., 
we should hold its evidence of contemporary 
events to be unimpeachable because it was printed 
in the capital. ' Yet how are old histories written ? 
By monks at fifty or a hundred miles from the 
metropolis, when there was no post, scarce a 
highway. Those reverend fathers must have been 



Blaeu's Atlas. 125 



excellently well informed ! I scarcely believe even 
a battle they relate — never their details.' 

However, in this great work Blaeu has spared 
no trouble or expense to secure the best writers ; 
even in the volume on America (a fruitful field for 
the marvellous) the descriptions, though graphic, 
are evidently those of trustworthy eye-witnesses. 
The following is a genuine contribution to the 
science of folklore, which had no recognised exist- 
ence in those days. In a description of marriage 
ceremonies among the natives -of Brazil, it is 
stated that the newly-married couple occupy a 
hammock of network; the father of either of 
them takes the opportunity of their slumber to 
cut with a sharp stone the cord suspending 
it — a necessary precaution, as they believe, to 
prevent the future progeny having tails, which, 
but for this operation, they would naturally 
have. 

England occupies a volume, the letterpress of 
which, after a short introduction by the publisher, 
consists of a reprint in the original Latin of 
Camden's ' Britannia.' This writer, it will be 
remembered, died long before Blaeu's work saw 
the light in 1654. The ' Britannia' — ' the common 
sun whereat our modern writers have all lighted 
their little torches' — was first published in 1586. 
The enduring reputation which it has enjoyed 
ever since is a meet reward for the laborious 
devotion of its author, of whom we read that ' he 
chose a single life, apprehending that the encum- 



126 Thirteenth Day. 

brances of a married state were like to prove a 
prejudice to his Studies.' The chief secret of its 
excellence above hosts of contemporary works is 
revealed in a single sentence of Camden's preface : 
1 There is, I trust, nothing of obscurity, of fables, 
or of random statement of which I need be 
ashamed ... to fables I have not given the 
slightest heed {fabulis ne tantulum quidem tribui)? 

To this day these maps of the English counties 
remain full of interest, presenting, as they do, 
what must have been a faithful view of the land 
nearly three centuries ago. London appears as a 
stately, compact city, with its one bridge uniting 
it to the modest suburb of Southwark, which in 
turn is separated from the village of Lambeth by 
Lambeth Marsh. The West Burn (a name still 
preserved as ' Westbourne ' to the north of Hyde 
Park, though the unhappy stream itself is doomed 
to run underground through foul sewers) then 
meandered through pleasant fields, passing on its 
way the rural hamlets of Kelborne, Marybone, 
and Paddington, till it entered Hyde Park (an 
isolated chace), issuing from which it passed under 
the Knight's Bridge, 

The maps of Scotland (which, with those of 
Ireland, fill the sixth volume) were prepared by 
the Scottish minister, Timothy Pont, who died 
about 1612. His papers passed into the hands of 
Sir Robert Gordon, of Straloch, geographer and 
antiquary, whose father, Sir John, was directed 
by Charles I. to aid the Blaeus in preparing an 



Blaeu's Atlas. 127 

atlas of Scotland for their great work. In a 
magniloquent preface John Blaeu attributes the 
projection of the work to * amplissimo et magni- 
ficentissimo viro,' Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet, 
Chancellor of Scotland. This is followed by a 
portentous topographical poem by Andrew Melvin, 
consisting of 1,320 Latin hexameters, the descrip- 
tive and historical text making up the remaining 
150 pages being mainly by Sir Robert Gordon, 
supplemented by the essays of parish ministers, 
who were directed by the General Assembly to 
assist in the work. Pont, who in 1600 was 
appointed to the remote parish of Dunnett, in 
Caithness, seems to have found his pastoral duties 
consistent with prolonged and repeated absence 
from his flock, for his maps must have been the 
fruit of diligent and laborious personal survey. 
They are wonderfully faithful and minute in detail, 
and to realize the difficulties of preparing them 
one has only to remember the state of the country, 
social as well as physical. Undrained, unfenced, 
almost without roads, the land was also in that 
state of lawlessness which marked the close of 
the feudal era in the Lowlands, while in the High- 
lands the savagery of the old clan system was still 
in full swing. 

Not the least interesting part of Blaeu's Atlas 
consists in the illustrations which adorn the 
corners and margins of the maps. Heraldry was 
still an honoured and accurate science ; the arms 
of the different kingdoms, royal cadets, and cities 



128 Thirteenth Day. 

are set forth in splendid engraving ; those of the 
principal landowners appear in their proper 
counties, and are sometimes blazoned in the text. 
Camden, indeed, was aware that this was a some- 
what ticklish proceeding. ' There are those, 'tis 
probable, who will stomach it at a great rate, that 
I have taken no notice of this or that Family, 
when it was never my design to mention any but 
the best/* But of more general interest are the 
spirited drawings of inhabitants of the various 
countries in their national costume. A few years 
ago a controversy arose as to the origin of the 
Highland dress, some being found to deny to the 
kilt and belted plaid any but a very moderate 
antiquity. Anyhow, in 1653 they were reputed 
ancient, for in the map of Scotia Antiqua, given at 
page 7 of this work, there are two figures, each 
wearing broad bonnets, one with tartan trews, the 
other with kilt, belted plaid, and hose. The map 
of Aberdeen also shows a kilted figure, and that 
of Lorn one with a feathered glengarry. 

Some of the French plates are very interesting. 
For instance, the map of Valois displays a gentle- 
man and his attendant out hawking with four dogs 
and all the minutiae of a hawker's equipment — 
hoods, jesses, lures, gloves, hunting sword and 
bugle. That of Calais gives a group of soldiers, 
with arms and costume carefully delineated, down 
to the smoking matches of the firelocks. Le 
Main has a party with fowling-pieces and lots of 
* Gibson's translation, 1695. 



Blaeu's Atlas. 129 



game, furred and feathered. But it is in the maps 
of partially explored countries that the largest 
spaces available for illustration occur, and these 
have been made full use of. The map of Rio 
Grande shows but a strip of land along the sea- 
coast, leaving a fine expanse of white paper 
inland. This has been filled in with sketches 
evidently made on the spot — landscapes, with 
characteristic vegetation clustering round buildings 
of adobe; a rude church, past which marches a 
body of soldiers followed by women carrying 
provisions on their heads, all drawn with skill and 
vigour. Altogether, a leisure morning may be 
devoted to far less pleasant occupation than the 
examination of this masterpiece of Amsterdam 
printing, and whosoever may be lured to the 
contemplation of these tomes may receive to 
himself Camden's favourite salutation : ' Vale, 
fave etfruere! 1 



THE END. 



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